Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Hollywood does not need any help to establish itself in Europe. It is already crushing our screens, our rooms, our platforms. European cinema, on the other hand, is relegated to the background, both in cinemas and on streaming services. Only the cultural exception fiercely defended by France, too often isolated elsewhere, has allowed us to maintain our production. This policy requires platforms to distribute at least 30% of European works and to contribute to the financing of our creation. This is crucial when 85% of screen time is captured by three U.S. streaming services. These provisions are an indispensable safety net at a time when the US administration is threatening to tax our works 100%. This resolution also reaffirms the competence of the Member States in cultural matters and the principle of subsidiarity enshrined in the Treaties. This respect for our sovereignty is rare enough to be hailed. In the end, I am delighted that this text is inspired by the French cultural exception and I wish: that tomorrow we can increase this quota of European works from 30 % to 50 %, as requested by the National Film Centre. Because to defend our creators is to defend our identity and therefore our freedom.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are still being talked about gender equality. But let us be lucid, behind these words hides an ideology that wants to erase the differences between men and women and that makes motherhood a shameful, almost taboo subject. Equality, the real thing, is to allow each woman to fully live her choices, to be a mother, to have a career or to reconcile the two. It is to give her the means to reconcile work and family, not to make her believe that she must give up one to succeed in the other. Europe does not need lessons in wokism. It needs the protection of women, the support of mothers, the fight against insecurity and the commodification of the human body. Because equality is not quotas, it is respect for women in all their professional, maternal and personal dimensions. It is by enabling women to fully assume what they are that we will build a fairer society. Yes to equality, no to gender ideology. (The speaker refused to answer two blue card questions by Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle and Abir Al-Sahlani)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the Sorbonne, the centre of French culture, Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen organised a Europeanist staging: To make American activists look like martyrs of academic freedom. Let's be clear: These researchers are not persecuted, they are punished for turning universities into ideological hotbeds, where science gives way to propaganda. As they unroll the red carpet, what happens to research in Europe? It is drowned under funding for projects on gender, race or deconstruction. Erasmus+ even subsidizes Islamist universities. Horizon Europe has become a window for ideology. Hungary is excluded, not for scientific reasons, but because it dares to think otherwise. This is academic freedom according to Brussels: a political tool. As if that were not enough, France is now erased, even in its own language. For this communication operation, French was replaced by a bland and rootless "globish". Identities are erased, cultures are levelled and Europe is standardized with hollow slogans. It is more than a renunciation, it is an assumed cultural submission. This operation is not scientific: This is an ideological re-education plan and we will fight it.

I do not see how you understood that I was saying that women and men were not equal. Moreover, I am glad to see that the cordon sanitaire has been broken, since you are speaking to us. Congratulations! That’s good. I'm just saying you're mixing everything up. Yes, radical Islam is a danger for women. I have two daughters; I do not want them to be veiled in ten years. In fact, you're mixing everything up. We are the only ones standing up for women here with the National Rally, and I take advantage of this microphone to say that the condescension you have towards us makes you forget that we won the European elections. The RN is the largest delegation in this Parliament, in all countries. So a little respect, please.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, self-satisfaction reigns supreme in this Chamber. In FEMM, it is accompanied by a misandry feminism and hatred of men. These institutions, under the guise of equality, fall into hypocrisy. They attack men while supporting a radical Islam that inferiorizes women. Did they not fund a campaign promoting the veil as a symbol of enslavement for millions of women around the world? Isn’t the Femyso Brothers’ Organisation received here and expected at the next European Youth Event in June? This variable-geometry feminism makes European technocrats complicit in Islamo-Leftism, which in one hand subjugates women and in the other destroys gender relations, under the pretext of fighting an alleged patriarchy. So yes to a feminism that really defends women, like the Nemesis collective, which denounces these hypocrisies. Yes to real support for their career and family life, without ideology or guilt. Equality will not be built in compromise with those who advocate the subjugation of women.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, education and vocational training are national competences. Any attempt at European standardisation ignores the economic and cultural realities of each nation. In France, the devaluation of technical and manual training has led to a real disaster, while the massification of general education has left thousands of young people behind. There is an urgent need to re-establish apprenticeships and work-study schemes as pillars of a strong economy, in particular through tax incentives and administrative simplification, rather than through ideologically-based European funding. We must stop accommodating our labour needs through mass immigration. Training our youth must be a national priority and not an adjustment variable. Europe must defend the transmission of know-how, but also encourage training in future professions such as artificial intelligence. Finally, the European Union too often finances training imposing progressive dogmas, called inclusive, to the detriment of real skills and merit. States must preserve their freedom to organize their education systems according to their needs. In short, more know-how, less ideology, more freedom for nations, less European regulation.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the face of the demographic challenge, which threatens the future of Europe, it is our duty to propose ambitious solutions to tackle it on our own, with and for the peoples of Europe. Rather than giving in to the ease of mass immigration, which jeopardises our social cohesion and our nations, we must invest in a genuine birth policy that respects our identities. Today, too many women are forced to give up their desire to have children because of the difficulties in reconciling family and professional life. There is an urgent need to remove these barriers by facilitating access to housing, developing childcare infrastructure and providing tax incentives to families who choose to give life. The ageing of our population must not be inevitable. Europe must once again become a continent of the future, where starting a family is no longer a luxury, but a fully supported choice. This is how we will ensure the sustainability of our nations and the transmission of our civilisations.

Mr President, when the Commission talks about disinformation, it knows what it is talking about, which multiplies the control mechanisms of the media and social networks to impose its unique thinking. In Romania, the Constitutional Court recently invalidated elections on the grounds that citizens had been manipulated by videos on TikTok. Who can believe such nonsense? Yes, foreign interference in elections exists. But is the EU not the first to interfere in the elections, as we have seen in Moldova, Georgia and now Romania? The European Parliament itself organised training for left-wing and far-left influencers during the European elections. Elections in the EU are now being cancelled on suspicion of interference. These methods were believed to be reserved for totalitarian regimes. The instrumentalisation of the fight against disinformation could well become the tomb of Europeanists. Censorship of information is already an unacceptable red line, but attacking Europeans’ voting sovereignty goes beyond all limits.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, censorship on social media has intensified in recent months, affecting platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. The left, at the origin of 90% of these censorships, already controlled the conventional media through regulations, but also thanks to collusion capitalism. While we must of course remove illegal content to protect people, it is essential to protect freedom of expression. Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, censorship was systematically hitting right-wing voices. We've seen it again recently with Instagram's censorship of right-wing accounts and media. This standardization and "political correctness" weakens our society and our democracies. Ladies and gentlemen, a Europe without freedom of expression is a Europe of regression.

Mr President, Commissioner, every time the European Union talks about freedom, we know that it is trying to fool us, and indeed this is still the case with this media regulation. First, because it wants to seize a national competence, which depends exclusively on the Member States. Secondly, because there is no real question of media freedom. We are well aware that pluralism and freedom of opinion are not values of Brussels Europe. This is illustrated by the way in which this assembly deals with the opposition. While in France the public broadcaster cheerfully professes an ideology, it is a private channel that is targeted and sanctioned by the media regulator. With this text, we will entrust to a committee led by the European Commission all the regulators who, in its hands, risk turning into a ministry of truth described by Orwell to track down the politically incorrect. Freedom of the media is a principle at the heart of the democracy to which we are committed. Together with my French colleagues from the Identity and Democracy Group, we will oppose any form of gag that bureaucrats would like to impose.

Mr President, the idea is appealing: remunerate farmers to capture carbon on their land through a voluntary, attractive and credible framework. But it will be quite the opposite. Their administrative burden will be very heavy. They will be responsible for controlling and maintaining the sequestered carbon, on pain of a fine. And this system will eventually become mandatory with much more constraints. What we forget to say is that this framework is necessary if we want to respect the Green Deal: hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 that need to be accounted for through this legal framework and reduced in line with market logic. This text is the first step towards integrating the agricultural sector into the European carbon market, one of the last sectors to resist it. Finally, it paves the way for the carbon offsetting scam: the purchase of quotas by multinationals for ‘greenwashing’ or even for fraud. Our farmers are there to feed us, not to use us as an adjustment variable for European climate policy.

Madam President, for a world that emits more and more CO2, what failure and hypocrisy when we always ask the same people to make efforts, while China and India account for 70% of the world’s demand for coal. What does Mr Hoekstra think, back from China? And nobody wondered if the choice of Dubai, an anti-ecological city par excellence, was relevant. We keep talking about a just and fair transition, but the truth is that our people see it only as a punitive aspect while their countries finance the green transition around the world. This COP will be a failure as long as it refuses to tackle merchant globalism, advocate localism and low-carbon technologies. Instead, it will be yet another communication number. A tip to move forward: it would be time to reason in terms of money invested and finally judge the results, but it would necessarily be disappointing.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the issue of the online protection of minors, and in particular children, is a fundamental issue that is of course close to my heart. While entering the internet age has many positive aspects, it has also put pornography at the click of a button for children. The figures show that this phenomenon is massive. As their brains develop, children will confuse sexuality with the pornographic images they see. The consequences are terrible: sexual violence, depressive symptoms, addictions, etc. To regulate and restrict this access to pornography among the youngest, there are several solutions, which are already in place in some European countries: the affixing of warning messages and mandatory age verification of users; the creation, on the French model, of national bodies responsible for the protection of minors; cracking down on the accessibility of pornographic content to minors; the default activation of parental control software; Finally, the sanctuarisation of educational institutions. The European strategy for a better Internet for children must take this scourge into account in its priorities. And above all, we must take appropriate measures, because there is a lot to do.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for Edmund Burke, an Irish philosopher, the media was already a fourth power in the 18th century, and since then their influence has grown steadily. In our modern societies and in our daily lives, the mass media has become ubiquitous. While this enormous information power is often coveted, the freedom of these media is one of the foundations of democracy based on freedom of expression and opinion. And it is our duty to ensure that this freedom continues to be protected by national laws. There are several fundamental reasons why I oppose this regulation. Firstly, because the Commission relies on the false argument that there is a European media market. Secondly, because he lies when he says that his goal is to protect media freedom. And finally because it wants to impose on all Member States a set of binding rules, while only a few States are targeted. To sum up this legislative proposal, the Commission seeks to seize a new national prerogative while ensuring that Europeans inform themselves as it wishes and finally vote accordingly.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us acknowledge this to the European Union: its ability to produce the standard is second to none, even in the worst of times. In the midst of the energy crisis, you want to raise an already high carbon price and lower the bill for European businesses and households. Because this new carbon market is nothing more than yet another tax on all fossil fuels used for heating and road transport, which will hit the most precarious first. It does not matter for the European Union, which wants to impose on us at all costs its pseudo-green agenda that no serious impact assessment justifies. Entire parts of European industry are at risk. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in cars, aviation, maritime transport, etc. All for nothing, since the EU is already the best student in the world. We have reduced our emissions by a third in 15 years, notably thanks to nuclear power, and we continue to innovate. But our only effort is in vain if the rest of the world does not follow us. The proposed carbon border adjustment mechanism is in no way a protection and sovereignty measure. This is a new constraint for our companies, which are deprived of free quotas for no export consideration. It is a wet firecracker. Meanwhile, we import American shale gas and China opens dozens of coal-fired power plants. Continue in punitive ecology and you will have yellow vests all over Europe.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if, out of ambition, the European Union intends to lead us down the path of economic suicide, and that is a complete loss, then we do not have the same definition of that word and that is fundamental. Although the EU’s climate targets will be increasingly revised upwards, our efforts will be overwhelmed by the growth of the rest of the world. Do you want to make the EU a totally decarbonised continent? You will make it a totally downgraded continent. The ambition must be the massive relocation of our industries, the promotion of the latest nuclear and renewable technologies on our soil and the control of our supply chains. It is by lowering our imported emissions that we will move forward and it is by protecting our model that we will lead by example. In a context of geopolitical upheaval with major repercussions on our economies, setting binding targets for states without taking into account their specificities and according to unfair criteria is a leak forward. All this to meet the requirements of an unrealistic Green Deal.

Madam President, the number of species affected is constantly increasing worldwide. The existence of such a convention is therefore a good thing, and it must obviously be supported. It must also be a matter for sovereign states, which are in the best position to act effectively; Let’s make no mistake about the scale! Even though some animal populations are stabilising – or even increasing, in Africa, thanks to protected areas and conservation policies put in place by states – the plague of illegal trade threatens these efforts. But this is not the only threat: demographic pressure and the expansion of towns and villages are increasingly reducing animal habitat areas. Similarly, civil unrest and conflict also contribute to this decline, especially when they are chronic. Let’s not forget drought and water management issues, which lead to ecosystem degradation. Finally, there is a need to improve the state of knowledge on the ground, to better assess real animal populations and local community challenges in order to become more effective, and of course to step up the fight against poaching.

Mr President, it was thought at the beginning of the year that the Commission had managed to find a reasonable compromise between States after the green light from its Committee of Experts. But obviously, the scientific argument was not enough to convince the most hostile. Among them, Parliament is trying to oppose this decision by all means. To the anti-nuclear obsession is added the well-founded pretext of the war in Ukraine. And for what credible alternative? It was only a question of granting gas and nuclear a transitional status under certain conditions. We cannot want to achieve the objectives of the Green Deal and do without cheap, low-carbon, manageable energy. This objection is bad news for Europe and ignores the fundamental challenges of decarbonisation, energy sovereignty and competitiveness. And in the current context of rising energy prices, a rejection of the Commission's proposal would be unacceptable as it would worsen the situation.

Madam President, this climate package should be called the degrowth package, but that objective is not being met. The European Union's climate ambitions will apply indiscriminately and at any cost. For the time being, no impact assessment has yet been able to demonstrate the real effects of such regulation, but one can imagine that they will be very hard. However, you know that the ecological transition is particularly sensitive to the daily lives of Europeans. The Commission has a sense of timing. At a time when Ukraine is becoming the epicenter of an energy war and there are fears of serious food crises in the world, you do not want, in this context, to slow down the pace of reforms a little, but on the contrary to accelerate it. It is entire sections of European industry that are under threat, hundreds of thousands of jobs in the automotive, aviation, maritime transport, etc. And at the same time, the debate on taxonomy is leaning towards the exclusion of nuclear power from European funding. There is an urgent need to ease the burden of environmental regulations and cushion the soaring energy costs, not to participate in them. The European Union has already reduced its emissions by 34% in 15 years, while it generates only 8% of global emissions. His effort alone will not be enough. If other countries do not follow us, despite the claims of the carbon border adjustment mechanism, their emissions will compensate for our reductions and we will have sacrificed ourselves for nothing.

Mr President, while education for people with disabilities or in remote areas is a noble goal, it is a pity that once again the European Parliament insists on putting ideology where common sense could have sufficed. This project of European standards around micro-credentials or automatic recognition of diplomas has an avowed aim. The objective pursued here is still an attack on the sovereignty of the Member States. It tries to create a strong sense of European citizenship and to interfere in what is still a national competence. French, I can only be suspicious of this text. Indeed, through its academic excellence, France has always distinguished itself throughout the world thanks to its culture and teaching traditions. Obviously, there is no question of establishing hierarchies in the quality of education. But the European Union does not have to sell the national flagships to satisfy a federalist will. Let’s protect our national specialities, let’s protect education.

Madam President, this text could not have fallen at a worse time. In the midst of the crisis, as energy prices are soaring in Europe, you want to contribute to the rise in the carbon price on the ETS market and significantly increase the bill for European businesses and households. When we talk about the stability reserve, we expect to work for stability. However, we do not have the same priorities here. You talk about the stability of emission allowances in circulation when we talk about price stability. By pure ideology, you will aggravate the precariousness and fractures between European countries. What better definition of punitive ecology? No one could believe that this dossier presented as a technique would not become political. Let us not forget that it is also cross-cutting. It is linked to two other crucial texts of the climate package: the carbon border tax and, above all, the revision of the ETS market. And the worst is yet to come. The latter calls for the creation of a separate carbon market, called ETS 2, for buildings and road transport. Specifically, all fossil fuels used for heating and transport will be taxed. Despite your assurances of compensation, energy prices will rise even more sharply, especially for the most vulnerable. We do not dare to believe that the European Parliament and the European governments will make this mistake. The priority today is to do the opposite of what you are advocating. Action must be taken to balance and even reduce the price of carbon, if necessary by injecting – not taking – emission allowances into the market. The stability reserve was created to absorb shocks and failures. This is an opportunity to use it wisely by remembering the yellow vests.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like the others before it, this COP was doomed to failure because it refuses to tackle the fundamental problems of commercial globalism, population growth and the use of advanced technology. Instead, we had a great moment of demagogic communication. States have multiplied solemn promises to reduce emissions and we were offered before the end, like a Hollywood film, a surprise agreement between the United States and China. The outcome of this COP26 is the influence of the management sector and globalised firms on environmental issues, since the event was sponsored, among other things, by Unilever. One cannot better illustrate the collusion between economic and political rulers. There is also no more emblematic example of greenwashing. We are talking about green growth and jobs, sustainability, resilience and even gender to actually announce more punitive ecology. Because the Paris Agreement is untenable. For it to be sustainable, the economy would have to be fully planned. We are waiting for the next step, the introduction of a carbon budget, a kind of carbon pass along the lines of the health pass and social credit. In the meantime, the EU will finance the climate transition of developing countries, including China, with its own industry at a loss. It will increase the energy bill of its citizens through excessive carbon pricing, supported by a complex system of taxes and allowances. Once it is not customary, we will agree with Greta Thunberg to describe this non-event as blah blah blah.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this veritable legislative tsunami is a pure product of bureaucratic greening. What is at stake in this coup de force is the reversal of European legislation, the decline in the competitiveness of our industry, the increase in taxes and energy bills and the strengthening of power in the hands of the Commission. And all of this is taking shape in the wake of the IPCC's increasingly catastrophic announcements, which aim to scare policymakers and citizens. It is hard to imagine that all the expected socio-economic upheavals have been taken into account, or even calculated, when the Commission proposes, for example, an emissions trading system for road transport and building heating. However, the revolt of the yellow vests in France and the rejection of the climate law in Switzerland should have served as an example. Turning the carbon border adjustment mechanism into an own resource means diverting the only good measure from this package, provided that in the meantime the European Union does not go to the WTO.