What Sarah spoke about.

8 Oct

2026

FR Speech

EU strategies for islands, coastal communities and outermost regions (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 270 000 European citizens live 17 000 kilometres from this Chamber, of whom this House never speaks. They're called the Caledonians. First I want to tell you what their life is like today. On October 1, their electricity bill increased by 10% for the third year in a row. 30% in three years, on an island that has everything to produce its own energy and to which …

7 Oct

2026

FR Speech

Empowering Europeans to address the cost-of-living crisis (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, prices are skyrocketing and you are looking for the culprits everywhere except in this room. It was not you who closed the Strait of Hormuz, but it was you who added your carbon quotas to oil prices. It wasn't you who dried up the fields this summer, but it was you who buried our farmers under thousands of pages of standards and opened our markets to those wh…

5 Oct

2026

FR Speech

Escalating student riots in France: arson attacks on schools, assaults against firefighters, police officers and teachers, including in La Ciotat, and the role of far-left parties in inciting violence (debate)

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16 Sep

2026

FR Speech

State of the Union (debate)

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Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, you have been ruining Europeans for almost seven years and I have one minute to reply. Every year you came to this gallery to ask us for more money. You took that money and destroyed it. You took it from Nicolas. His work is worth $4,000, he gets $2,000, and that's not enough for you? You still take his money when he refuels and when he heats up, because you dec…

8 Jul

2026

FR Speech

EU’s response and preparedness to protect people against recurring heatwaves and upcoming wildfires (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, less than one in five households in Europe is equipped with an air conditioner. In the United States and Japan, nine out of ten households have them. And yet, with taxpayers’ money, we are so rich that we climate the whole world. The French Development Agency lends EUR 20 million to renovate the air conditioning of a bank in Thailand, it pays EUR 7 million to eq…

17 Jun

2026

FR Speech

Protecting children’s safety and mental health from the risks posed by social media – our duty to act now (debate)

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19 May

2026

FR Speech

EU cybersecurity and preparedness in view of advanced AI systems (debate)

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Madam President, your life has been hacked. Look at what we Europeans have suffered in just six months. In France, the tax authorities have been hacked into your tax returns. The USSRAF also, with the addresses, the names of your children and their nurses. The Ministry of the Interior, too, with the criminal record file of 16 million French citizens. A 15-year-old teenager hacked into the state an…

18 May

2026

FR Speech

Negative trade-related effects of global overcapacity on the Union steel market (debate)

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Mr President, in love, it is said that it is when someone is no longer there that we suddenly become aware of their value. In this Chamber, it is the same. After despising and even martyring our industry, you begin to regret it. Transforming metals, making steel, it was no longer very fashionable here. For decades, you have therefore multiplied the standards to make the steel industry a little les…

29 Apr

2026

FR Speech

EU strategy in response to the ongoing Middle East crisis, its implications on energy prices and the availability of fertilizers (joint debate)

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28 Apr

2026

FR Speech

Situation of fundamental rights in the European Union in 2024 and 2025 (debate)

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Mr President, what is the point of fighting totalitarian regimes, if it is to imitate them? Yesterday, the USSR sent us its spies and pointed its nuclear warheads at us. What was our answer? We have opened up our radio frequencies and liberalised television. Our press was free. All parties could express themselves, even the Communist Party. Has this freedom weakened us? No, no. Freedom triumphed a…

21 Jan

2026

FR Speech

European Council meeting (joint debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when 92% of our data is stored outside Europe, when our digital infrastructures comply with American law, it is our hospitals, our administrations and our businesses that become vulnerable. And, Mrs von der Leyen, in the meantime, what is the Commission doing? Regulations, standards, forms. As the others move forward, we regulate. Yet we know how to do it. The R…

15 Dec

2025

FR Speech

Amending certain CAP Regulations as regards the conditionality system, types of intervention in the form of direct payment, types of intervention in certain sectors and rural development and annual performance reports, data and interoperability governance, suspensions of payments annual performance clearance and controls and penalties (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mercosur, dermatosis, PAC. Three words, three sufferings for our farmers, one common denominator: the European Union and its bureaucracy. Yet cultivating the land promised a life of freedom, close to animals, nature and beauty. But you have bureaucratised agriculture to the point of asphyxiation. The French Strategic Plan for the Common Agricultural Policy is…

25 Nov

2025

FR Speech

European Defence Industry Programme and a framework of measures to ensure the timely availability and supply of defence products (‘EDIP’) (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you spend your days denouncing Trump and our dependence on the United States, and you are now accepting that European public money is financing American military equipment. I'm telling you: If you buy American, you will remain under American tutelage. It's as simple as that. Because any U.S. defense equipment, any U.S. component remains subject to U.S. law. W…

10 Sep

2025

FR Speech

State of the Union (debate)

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Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, we no longer expect anything from you and you still find a way to disappoint us. After the energy crisis and the renewables fiasco, we were waiting for you to question your policy, but you are going even further. After the explosion of the cost of your big loan, we were waiting for you to come back to your senses, but you are now proposing an aberrant budget of …

10 Jul

2025

FR Speech

Post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with each reform of the CAP, new words, new acronyms, more paperwork, more standards, and less income for farmers. Our farmers are key strategic players, more valuable than all the minerals and cars you sacrifice them against. These magnificent workers of the earth, you neglect them. Worse, you mistreat them: by means of standards, and by imposing unfair comp…

7 Jul

2025

FR Speech

Financial activities of the European Investment Bank – annual report 2024 (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, is it reasonable to lend money when you are over-indebted yourself? Clearly, no. Yet, despite EUR 687 billion in debt, the European Union believes it is so rich that it enjoys being lavish in distributing our money around the world. But to whom do the EIB and its 4,000 employees lend our money? To find out, let's look at his activity report. It is entitled ‘Prio…

18 Jun

2025

FR Speech

Electricity grids: the backbone of the EU energy system (debate)

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Mr President, EUR 2 trillion, we are asked to vote EUR 2 trillion to finance electricity networks until 2050. One wonders naively what can justify such expenses, when Europe has already been electrified for a long time and our electricity consumption has not increased in the last fifteen years. I give you the explanation: Ladies and gentlemen, politicians, it's your fault. You have abandoned nucle…

18 Jun

2025

FR Speech

Upcoming NATO summit on 24-26 June 2025 (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if unfortunately we were attacked tomorrow morning, would we be able to intercept 200 missiles fired simultaneously to avoid the complete destruction of our cities? The answer is no. Anti-missile batteries deployed in Europe do not even cover 10% of our territory. France, yet the best army in Europe, as it proves again this week at the Paris Air Show, has few…

6 May

2025

FR Speech

Discharge 2023 (joint debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, did you know that the European Union's debt had just risen by 32% in a single year, or almost EUR 110 billion in additional debt? We already know your favorite solution, the creation of new taxes: carbon allowances on fuels, taxes on packaging, taxes on everything that moves. Since you've spent so much, you're about to tax us. It would be enough, however, of a r…

11 Mar

2025

FR Speech

White paper on the future of European defence (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have been witnessing an unlikely scene for two months. The most fervent Atlanticists in this assembly suddenly discover that Washington must no longer be relied on. Even those who kept quiet when Barack Obama tapped European leaders, even those who said nothing when Joe Biden prevented the construction of French submarines in Australia, even tho…

13 Feb

2025

FR Speech

Threats to EU sovereignty through strategic dependencies in communication infrastructure (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are faced with two major historical movements: one is technological, artificial intelligence, the other is political, the wind of freedom blowing over the West. However, our regulations, such as the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act and the MiCA Regulation against bitcoin, are at odds with these movements. You send back to the world an image that …

12 Feb

2025

FR Speech

Competitiveness Compass (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner Séjourné, ladies and gentlemen, we are here to discuss the initiative launched by the European Commission on competitiveness. To rely on the Commission to make our companies competitive is to hope that an arsonist suddenly becomes a volunteer firefighter. The Commission aims, I quote, to 'make standards-setting processes quicker'. Companies don't need you to produce stan…

16 Dec

2024

FR Speech

A European Innovation Act: lowering the cost of innovating in Europe (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, three years ago, on the other side of the Atlantic, the President of El Salvador decided to invest in cryptocurrencies for his country. At the time, he was dismayed by the political class and the IMF. He now has a 100 % added value, i.e. hundreds of millions of dollars available for his people, for the security and sovereignty of his country. The whole world is …

27 Nov

2024

FR Speech

The arrest of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal and the call for his immediate and unconditional release, and the repression of freedom of speech in Algeria (debate)

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Mr President, there are times when we must put politics aside and, without ulterior motives, side with freedom, talent and courage. We rarely have the opportunity to be unanimous in defending the same cause, a cause that really deserves no debate, but a unanimous vote. This opportunity extends its arms to us today, because a great writer has just been arrested in Algeria. This great writer is Boua…

27 Nov

2024

FR Speech

Presentation by the President-elect of the Commission of the College of Commissioners and its programme (debate)

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Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, you are well aware that the peoples of Europe have no interest whatsoever in this election of Commissioners. And I want to say to your face, Mrs von der Leyen, that it is your fault. Through low-spoken arrangements, small partisan calculations and technocratic hypocrisy, you have succeeded in disgusting the citizens of the European institutions. They don't even …