Speeches

Mr President, today we are discussing Azerbaijan, because Baku is preparing to host a world climate conference and obviously those who denounce this are being asked to keep quiet. Well, we will not be silent, because the defence of the climate cannot be done at the expense of human rights. Never. The truth is that the COP should have been boycotted and the gas agreements suspended as long as Armenia’s territorial integrity is not fully and absolutely respected, a peace agreement is not signed and Azerbaijani and Armenian political prisoners are not released. So let's say what needs to be said: Aliyev muzzles the press to hide, among other things, his relations with Russia and with the fossil fuel industry, but also to hide his repeated attacks on his political opponents, who sometimes suffer torture. Ilham Aliyev is not a Democrat. Yesterday, however, the European Commission signed new gas contracts with the Azerbaijani regime, indifferent to ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a major moral and political mistake. We denounced it because we know our history and we have not forgotten the genocide suffered by the Armenian people. But that memory is not enough. So now we need to act to put Aliyev's regime back on track once and for all.

Mr President, 1.3 million people are homeless, 400 000 children live on the streets in the European Union, 29 million live in housing with mould and 24 million in highly polluted housing. Every year, 100,000 deaths in Europe are attributable to poor housing. We have been waiting too long for a real European housing policy. We now have the speeches, but they are not just speeches that we need, but actions and an ambitious, powerful policy that finally allows Europeans to live in dignity. I want to read you a few words from these Europeans: At home, everything falls into ruin, the chassis does not hold, there is moisture in all rooms. My daughter has bronchitis, my home is so unsanitary that I would rather live on the street than live there. My four-year-old daughter suffers the most. Never friends, because it's impossible. So we can no longer accept these terrible testimonies of people who live on one of the richest continents in the world. We can no longer accept the deaths of misery, such as that of Aïssé Touré in Garges-lès-Gonesse, who died at the age of thirteen from the misdeeds of a sleep merchant and the mismanagement of co-ownership. We can no longer accept the collapse of buildings, such as those on Rue d'Aubagne in Marseille, or all these lives shortened by pollution. Housing is too fundamental, too crucial and too central to the lives of our fellow citizens for us to wait any longer before taking action. A roof is a right.

Madam President, 'Carvalho', I ask you to remember that name, because in 2018, the Portuguese Armando Carvalho complained about the European Union's climate inaction, whose climate immobility fuelled the fires that ravaged his land in 2017. Carvalho is also the Portuguese name of this tree, oak, very resistant to fire and yet gradually replaced throughout Europe by conifers, certainly profitable but easily flammable. It's 2024 and Portugal is still burning. European climate action is in jeopardy, under attack from the right and everything remains to be done, I said it all, in terms of adaptation. Tonight, I would like to have a word for the overseas territories, at the forefront of the impacts of climate change. Guadeloupe and Martinique, for example, are facing rising waters and coastal erosion. No less than 8,000 homes are directly threatened, mostly without title of occupation because of a post-colonial situation, and therefore without any protection. Climate change is about solidarity. We urgently need a care policy and a policy of adaptation.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago Ursula von der Leyen announced to us the postponement by one year of the European law on deforestation, which we adopted here by a very large majority. You know, every minute, ten forest football fields disappear in the world. If we take the number of minutes in a year and the figure that the European Union is responsible for 16% of deforestation, it is, remember, 841,536 football fields that will disappear in the coming year. Isn't that nothing to you? As we learned this summer of the collapse of global carbon sinks, Brazil, Bolivia, Turkish Kurdistan and Portugal burned again. I want to say to the right of this House, which complains when I raise this question, and to the lobbies that that is enough! Your war on the Green Deal, your willingness to unravel everything and wage war on nature, will only accelerate climate chaos and harm the people of the world.

Mr President, whales are simply life. Their beauty is breathtaking. But beyond that, by their way of life, the carbon they generate, the biodiversity they maintain, whales are essential to marine life, but also to life on land. Defending whales means defending all of humanity. Yet this is the crime of which Paul Watson is accused, threatened from Denmark with extradition to a country that not only does not respect the most decent conditions of detention, but on top of that violates international law and behaves like a real environmental criminal. Because yes, it is Japan that has been condemned by the International Court of Justice for illegal whaling. And yes, it is Japan that perseveres and opens the hunt to an increasing number of species of whales for commercial purposes. But who has the power to protect whales, since these whales have rights? Who can speak to protect them and who has a duty to do so? It is the international community and therefore also the European Union, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States. This international community today is too silent. It is up to us to stand up and protect the rights of life and those who protect it. The European Union must live up to history, ladies and gentlemen, it must be on the side of whales rather than poachers, on the side of Paul Watson rather than Japan. So let's live up to our international commitments for life, climate, biodiversity and human rights. Let's protect our own rules against environmental crime, to protect whistleblowers or against abusive gag lawsuits. In short, let us demand loud and clear from the Danish government the non-extradition and immediate release of Paul Watson. Free Paul Watson!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to invite you to close your eyes, to imagine just a few seconds. Imagine yourself unable to raise your voice, sing, shout, or simply speak on the street, but also at home. Imagine being forbidden to move freely, to go to school or the park, to work or to the doctor. Imagine for a moment. This fate is that reserved for Afghan women, those women who are taken into the most absolute isolation, whom we want to silence and whom we want to erase. It has been three years since Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban and the situation of Afghan women has only worsened to the point of total annihilation. But Afghan women are resisting. They are a real spark of hope. They are not victims, but resistance fighters. That is the purpose of the invitation that my colleague Mounir Satouri and I extended to the Afghan women who were with us this week in this Chamber, and whose courage was praised by Roberta Metsola, to make their voices heard. Beyond ethnicities, partisan orientations, backgrounds, these women, diplomats, politicians, citizens unite to defend peace and justice in Afghanistan. One of them, Parwana Ibrahimkhail, was detained and tortured by the regime for opposing it. All these women have fled their country to continue to fight for the rights of all. We cannot bring ourselves to have their voices silencated. To let women be crushed in one place on earth is to deny the voice of all women and of all humanity. This is also the meaning of the words of one of these women who visited us, Tahmina Salik, who said to us yesterday: Standing in solidarity with Afghan women is not just a fight for them, but for all of humanity. So let's stand by them. Yes, we must reject the trivialization of the Taliban regime by the United Nations and the international community. Yes, we must recognize ongoing gender apartheid as a crime against humanity. And yes, we must welcome these women and sometimes also these men whose lives are in danger in Afghanistan, but sometimes also in neighboring countries, Pakistan and Iran. It is only at this level that Europe will be worthy of its values.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the solar panel companies Systovi in France and Meyer Burger in Germany and electric car companies like Audi in Forest in Belgium are closing down these European companies. Thousands upon thousands of workers are put out of work while precariousness explodes. Europe is losing its sovereignty in areas as diverse and as crucial as the objects of the transition or our indispensable medicines. For years, we were told that fiscal orthodoxy coupled with free trade would save our economies. But it was the investments that saved us during the health crisis. These are the investments that saved us during Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine. And it will be the investments that will save Europe from its demise tomorrow. So yes, we need massive investments for decarbonization and biodiversity, for health and housing, for industry and agriculture, and for the depollution of the world. But how do you want to ensure European competitiveness without protecting our economy? How do you want to protect our jobs and respect the natural rhythm of the planet by undermining all the rules that aim to protect them, under the false pretext of simplification? European naivety is guilty. It is the announcement of an industrial, ecological and social disaster to come if we do not implement green protectionism.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to open your eyes. You will see floods that ravage entire territories, houses cracked due to climate change, lives of work that go up in smoke due to climate change. You will see land devalued by industrial pollution that you refuse to fight, childhood cancers explode, because of pesticides that you refuse to reduce, and water that disappears and is gradually made unfit for consumption, because of toxic products that you refuse to ban. So here we are in an election period and, to preserve the status quo, you are organizing the great environmental regression: the moratorium for some; the regulatory break for others; for the far right, the repeal of the Green Deal. But what world do you live in? Socialist comrades, with whom we have fought so many battles, have you ever forgotten your promises, voting for austerity rather than for the investment of the future, for the unravelling of the CAP, mega trucks and, for half of you, for GMOs? Many young Europeans are here today in Strasbourg to ask us one thing: Accelerate the green transition in social justice. So, as you join forces to destroy our common future, we will continue to fight for justice, peace and ecology.

Mr President, the needs for the green transition are enormous and poverty is exploding in Europe; But it is at this very moment that you are depriving us of the means to invest in the necessary ecological bifurcation and social justice. In doing so, you also condemn Europe to lagging behind the economic powers in the face of the US IRA and the massive Chinese investment plan. In short, for you, if we listen to you, to save the economy, we would have to abandon all legislation to protect the climate, biodiversity and health. So, during this plenary session, you launch the great unravelling of the Green Deal, the great environmental regression, supposedly to save an economy, which you condemn to chaos because of your confinement in budgetary orthodoxy. Socialist comrades, how can you claim to defend and guarantee social justice and make the climate transition by voting against the necessary investments, i.e. in favour of this fiscal stability pact? Make no mistake: for a fairer and greener Europe, we will continue to fight and not give up. But today, this vote burys our future.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no point in adopting ambitious climate targets and pretending to be carbon neutral if we are not able to plan for the gas phase-out. However, the package presented to us today is the only text in the entire Green Deal to address this crucial issue. It should therefore have been an opportunity to plan our exit from gas in 2035, as scientists are asking us to do, and to anticipate, rather than undergo, a transition that will in any case be inevitable for the European Union. But once again, the right, the liberals, the socialists preferred to offer gas lobbies a way out rather than protecting the climate and the people of Europe. Gas operators will simply be able to replace fossil gas with fossil hydrogen and continue to benefit from public money to build their pipelines. Gas lobbies: one, climate: zero. I am nevertheless glad that this text finally allows the Member States to ban the import of Russian gas, which we environmentalists have been asking for 20 years, what we should have done at the time of Crimea or Donbass or, at worst, when Vladimir Putin launched his terrible war against Ukraine. Finally, the package suggests that Member States ban energy cuts for unpaid bills. When 10% of Europeans suffer from energy poverty, it is essential to protect them from these cuts in the face of extreme cold, in winter, as in summer, in the face of heat waves. Europe must protect its people from the Russian climate and attacks and guarantee the dignity of Europeans. Count on us to continue the fight for sovereignty, justice and climate.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in Guadeloupe and Martinique, soils have been polluted for two decades by the pesticide chlordecone, classified as a carcinogen, which now contaminates 90% of the population. While the marine populations denounce ecocide, we would like to underline the urgency of depolluting these soils and propose the following amendment. Member States should prioritise the reduction of risks to human health, animal health and the environment from particularly harmful contaminations, such as high concentrations of chlordecone, arsenic or nickel in all regions such as Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, and should therefore put in place concrete and ambitious measures to halt soil degradation, study soil quality and regenerate soil health in those regions.

Madam President, I would like to make a point of order under Rule 195. The ongoing repression of environmental activists in Europe who resort to peaceful civil disobedience is a major threat to democracy and human rights. These are the words of the UN rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, in his report published today. Ecoterrorists, ecovandalists, threats to democracy. Despite the Aarhus Convention, Member States strive to condemn harmless acts that have no other objective than to point out the illegal inaction of States on climate, biodiversity, pollution or health, documented by scientists. In France, today in the Tarn, the police light fires at the foot of the trees in which are hung the ‘squirrels’, these defenders of nature. Flame poisoning that may set the forest on fire, deprivation of sleep, food and water, violent and dangerous arrests, insults and even threats of rape, these practices are unworthy of the European rule of law. It's time to react. I ask that the European Parliament, our institution, and Europe finally condemn the violations of the rights of environmental defenders and in turn fund the mission of the UN rapporteur.

Mr President, Azerbaijan is threatening Armenia. Yes, we must mobilize for peace, because yes, peace is in danger. With his ethnic cleansing operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, Ilham Aliev, the Baku autocrat, pretended to play the game of appeasement. Let's not be fooled! He is now eyeing Armenia. Europe was absent when Azeri troops entered Nagorno-Karabakh. Will we turn a deaf ear again as Aliev multiplies provocations and threatens to reopen the wound of the Armenian Genocide? For behind the great declarations and condemnations of principle, nothing! No action, no sanction. In July 2022, Ms von der Leyen was even travelling to Baku to buy Azeri gas, the other name for Russian gas. I make it clear that we must stop gas imports, punish the political and military leaders behind this aggression, give unconditional support to the 100,000 refugees who have had to leave Nagorno-Karabakh and are now largely homeless, without food, without work. We demand the immediate release of some 50 political prisoners from Nagorno-Karabakh, both military and civilian, who are still illegally detained in Baku, in defiance of human rights. Let's live up to it!

Mr President, the anger that farmers are expressing today is perfectly legitimate. But tell me, how can we claim to defend agriculture by defending the status quo of a head-on system, a model that destroys peasant employment, concentrates profits in a few hands by generalising precariousness and degrades the quality of our food by exploding food insecurity? We've had enough. Enough of the dual discourse of those who say they support farmers, but vote for free trade that strangles them by subjecting them to unfair competition. Mr Canfin, the "at the same time" is the other name of this double speech. So stop the hypocrisy. You have locked farmers so much into pesticides, of which they are the first victims, that they no longer even know how to get out of them. Today, 80% of CAP subsidies go to the 20% of the largest farms. And you want us to believe that the problem is ecology? Instead, let us reduce the excessive margins of agribusiness instead of murdering our farmers. Let us reject the violence of a Lactalis, who is feeding himself on the backs of peasants and who is now being prosecuted for massive tax evasion when the wealth of his owners is equivalent to 2.5 million years of income of a cattle farmer. This is what we need to change today.

Madam President, let us be responsible, let us reject the requests of Bayer-Monsanto, Corteva or Limagrain! Let's reject the irreversible deregulation of GMOs! The political choice we need to make is clear: the patented profits of a few or the public interest, naive trust in the supposed power of a technology or the guarantee of our food sovereignty and the independence of peasants, the explosion of seed prices or the protection of our farmers. However, the Court of Justice of the European Union has recalled that: Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are genetically modified organisms, but delusional sellers hope to make large profits at the expense of farmers and consumers. We are even told that GMOs could be organic, against the opinion of organic farmers! The legislation on GMOs is in fact self-sufficient. Scientific studies, traceability, possibility to choose: why is it now being undermined? Yet Europeans have repeatedly expressed that they want to be able to choose GMO-free foods. Farmers themselves want to be able to choose their seeds. But the majority of this Parliament now prefers to impose opacity on them, prices that explode and, ultimately, a system that strangles them. We will oppose it.

Mr President, bombs continue to fall on Ukraine, and we must continue unceasingly and relentlessly to support the Ukrainian people in the name of human rights, democracy and the European project itself. Shame on those who now turn their backs on him. This war is tens of thousands of civilian victims, thousands of lives broken, cities destroyed, children orphaned, women raped. Behind this human devastation, it is Ukraine’s living conditions that are deteriorating dramatically. Burned forests, polluted rivers, lands filled with mines, bombs and toxic shells – perhaps 200 000 hectares contaminated for several generations – and, of course, the ecocidal bombing of the Kakhovka dam. So our responsibility as Europeans is to do everything to help Ukraine achieve peace and rebuild. For this, we urgently need to carry this crime of ecocide, which we are integrating into our law, at international level, in order to be able to judge together the crimes committed by Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. Without justice, there is neither peace nor security. So let’s live up to history.

Madam President, let us hope that this time it will be approved by our Chamber. It is simple: On 16 November, Member States will validate the European Commission's proposal to renew the glyphosate licence for another 10 years. We refuse it. We say stop glyphosate because when so many independent studies denounce the toxicity of this product to human health, reauthorizing glyphosate is criminal. When so many other studies denounce the devastation caused by this herbicide on nature and biodiversity, reauthorising glyphosate is a betrayal. There is an urgent need to ensure the protection of our health and life by immediately and definitively turning the page on glyphosate. This is a major public health issue. We only have one life. Let's defend her together. So, colleagues, I propose that we include on tomorrow morning’s agenda, at 8.30 a.m., a debate with resolution entitled ‘Declaration by the Commission and the Council on the renewal of glyphosate and the urgency of an exit’. This debate would be organised with one speech per political group and I would like two separate votes: one on the holding of the debate and the other on the adoption of a resolution.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a few months ago there was a new scandal: the "Pesticide Gate". We then learned that several pesticide companies, including Syngenta and Bayer Monsanto, had knowingly hidden from the European authorities the results of studies demonstrating the toxicity of their products to citizens, and in particular to children. The European Commission then denounced a breach of legal obligations. But since then, nothing. Neither a committee of inquiry, which we had proposed to launch in the European Parliament, nor a simple statement by our body, which is supposed to defend the interests of Europeans by guaranteeing in particular compliance with our laws. Colleagues to the right of this Chamber: Your refusal to face the problem is unworthy and irresponsible. By looking away, you are encouraging the very impunity we are fighting. I therefore call here for a statement by the Commission and the Council on the lack of transparency of authorisations for pesticides and their risks to the environment and human health to be put on the agenda. This is without a resolution for this evening, this Wednesday evening, with one round of speeches per political group. And I ask, Madam President, that this be done by a roll-call vote.

Madam President, I have a minute, a minute to talk about a pain that has lasted for centuries, that of the Armenian people who have been martyred, humiliated and so little defended. To talk about the current exodus in Nagorno-Karabakh is to talk about our responsibility, our complicity, it is to talk about the gas that we prefer to import rather than to oppose an ongoing ethnic cleansing. Looking away is not only a moral mistake, it is also a tragic geopolitical mistake. Because when there is an aggressor and an assailant, one cannot pretend to be neutral without endorsing the aggression. Didn't we learn anything from history? Have we forgotten the 1915 genocide? I am ashamed of this Europe that knows but does nothing. And as we know, the risk today is that of undermining the territorial integrity of Armenia. So yes, we need peacekeepers, yes, we need trade and economic sanctions. Yes, we must immediately denounce the shameful gas deal signed with Aliyev. A balance of power must be imposed if we are to protect peace and the Armenian people. We cannot fail, otherwise Europe will have blood on its hands.

Mr President, asbestos is an invisible killer that has caused much suffering and shortened far too many lives. Lives stolen by indifference to workers' suffering, lives poisoned by the law of profit placed above the protection of workers. Yet their lives matter. In Dunkirk, France alone, more than two thousand asbestos victims, such as Pierre Pluta, have recently been rejected. More than a quarter century of fighting those who knowingly exposed them to poisoning. In vain. I would therefore like to thank those who have made this directive more ambitious. Unfortunately, however, the text we are adopting makes no room for the liability regime that we wanted to establish, nor for the inclusion of asbestos exposure in social protection schemes. Hundreds of thousands of workers now want to be protected, finally properly recognized and those responsible punished. The situation is also terrible in our schools for our children. The text we are adopting today is therefore only one step. We urgently need a directive for the mandatory detection of asbestos, with effective techniques such as surface sampling, means and the establishment of true justice.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the extreme right says that on 9 June we will have a choice to make, a choice of civilisation. Well, that is true. Either we choose decline and populist national confinement, or we choose ecology to respond to the new climate regime and social justice. This is the choice we will have to make. Madam President, I listened well to your speech, in some brave ways, but I want to talk to you about ecology, because I heard your words, but I also heard your silences. You tell us about the beauty of European forests, the Wadden Sea, but you persist in your silence on the restoration of nature. However, this law must be adopted, as you know, it must stand firm. Your speech, in the end, is that of a captive trapped in the retrograde prison of the dogmas of your political family. But the new climate regime leaves us no choice, and you know that, too. It must be understood that the laws of the economy are not above the laws of nature and that the economy must be rebuilt within planetary boundaries. Ecosystems have rights that must be recognized. We need to get out of the civilisation of toxic substances, of PFAS, of environmental threats, and that is the Chemicals Regulation. We must also ban the export of pesticides and chemicals that we consider too dangerous to be authorised on our territory. We also need an animal welfare law. The battle for ecology is a battle to safeguard the possibility of living on our planet. Our common duty and to stand firm in the face of merchants of death and climatosceptic bonimenteurs.

Mr President, the planet is going through a deep ecological crisis and Europe is no exception. We have entered a new climate regime, as shown by the unprecedented fires in Greece, the drought in Spain, and others could be mentioned. But instead of reconnecting with the living, the war continues, waged here by the right wings who opposed the law on the restoration of nature before the summer. Before the summer, the President of the Commission had been silent on nature restoration, and the President of the Parliament had been discreet. Ms Metsola is now telling us that it is climate policies that are fuelling populism in Europe, at a time when millions of Europeans are suffering climate change in their flesh. The truth is that what feeds populism is the same as what feeds the ecological crisis. What feeds democratic and ecological crises is how leaders bow to lobbies and king market rules. It is the refusal to change a deadly system that crushes human beings and destroys nature. It is time to change the logic if we want to prevent the collapse of life. Every minute counts, we must act.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing the accelerated collapse of life as a result of biodiversity loss and climate change. Everyone knows that. The Nature Restoration Act has a crucial scope. It must be adopted. Every parliamentarian in this Chamber has in his or her hands a share of the destiny of humanity. So, colleagues, open your eyes! Millions of species are disappearing, our fields are becoming poorer, our soils are drying up, our forests are burning. It is life itself that disappears. This law was to be the most important law for biodiversity adopted in 20 years. And yet you, to the right and to the far right of this Chamber, are trying to destroy it. By condemning nature, you condemn our future. Where did your conscience go? Was it bought by the lobbies? Is it non-existent? What will you tell your children? Have we sacrificed nature for the success of the Union of European Right? It is unworthy, it is irresponsible and it is criminal. So, ladies and gentlemen on the right, there is still time to pull yourself together. I call on you to disobey your leaders who dishonor you and to pass this law.

Mr President, "the worst environmental disaster in Ukraine since Chernobyl": This is how the Ukrainian government described the attack on the Kakhovka dam. And for good reason: 18 billion tonnes of water were released, raising the level of the river by six metres. The disasters observed are expected to extend over 5 000 kilometres: 5,000 kilometres of flooded land, including 11 natural parks and 48 protected areas; 5 000 kilometres of decaying organisms, pollutants, heavy metals and fertilisers, which may spill into the Black Sea, where tens of thousands of dolphins have already been found dead since the start of the conflict; 450 million tonnes of engine oil spilled; and, at the end of the race, the risk of an accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, awakening the painful memory of Chernobyl’s devastating ecocide. Yes, the attack on the Kakhovka dam caused ecocide. The Ukrainian investigation was opened on the basis of Article 441 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code establishing ecocide. Then I ask the question. Ukraine has asked us to accelerate its accession to NATO and the EU, and we have responded. The Ukrainian government has asked us for military support, and we have responded. Volodymyr Zelensky has been asking us for months to recognise the crime of ecocide, in order to facilitate the trial of the crimes committed by Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. But silence reigns. Why?