9
Sep
2025
Watch
Devastating wildfires in Southern Europe: the need to strengthen EU aid to restore the massive loss of forests and enhancing EU preparedness (debate)
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today you are proposing a debate on the devastating fires in Europe this summer, particularly in my region of Aude. I could just think of the victims and salute the relief work, and then leave. But that's not why I'm here. I'm here to get things done, and these fires pose several problems that I'm going to address. First, they show once again that the best bulwark in the face of fires is the vine. However, by your criminal policies, anti-agriculture, anti-viticulture, by all these tearings that you encourage, you also participate in increasing the scale of these devastating fires. If you really want to improve the situation, help our winemakers, support the maintenance and development of agriculture and viticulture on these beautiful lands. Secondly, I would like to denounce the responsibility of Emmanuel Macron and his governments, who had promised the renewal and even the extension of the Canadairs fleet. Promise alas not kept. How can we understand that these governments are talking about global warming, increasingly pervasive risks and, at the same time, do not foresee the means of struggle commensurate with the stakes? Are our rural, our landscapes for them an adjustment variable? Finally, I cannot end without saluting the action of the firefighters: more than 2,000 mobilized in a few hours. What courage, what dedication! Here too, Europe wants to kill what works, since your European directive on working time directly endangers the status of volunteer firefighter, even though volunteering represents almost 80% of the workforce in France. How can you impose such an aberration on the peoples of Europe? In this area, the pyromaniacs, it is also you and it must stop now. The victims are watching you.