Speeches

Sir, you are talking about independent studies. Yet your political family, at EU level as well as in the Member States, keeps firing red bullets at all the agencies that are able to provide these independent scientific studies. To give you an example: In France, we have an institution that deals with pesticides and provides studies, which, however, are hidden. They are buried by governments, which do not do so. At EU level, we have institutions, EU agencies that are supposed to deal independently with the health effects of certain products, and yet rely on data produced by whom? Not by independent institutions, but by pesticide companies themselves! So, sir, be consistent: If you want to end grants for NGOs, defend creation and investment in public research and in EU agencies!

Mr President, over the past 50 years, Europe has lost millions of industrial jobs – 2 million in France since 1970, particularly in the textile sector. The 2008 financial crisis was accompanied by massive social plans. Even today, the employees of Michelin, Vencorex, ArcelorMittal, Grandpuits and Chapelle-Darblay must be supported at all costs. Let's be serious: the Green Deal is not responsible for this job destruction. As early as 2015, Renault and PSA produced fewer cars in France than in the 1960s. No, what is at stake is the insatiable appetite of shareholders and managers, who always use the same tireless arguments to destroy jobs, social rights and environmental legislation with a simple flip-flop. The truth is that it is the destruction of the environment that is now destroying the European economy. By defending the status quo, you, on the right and on the far right, are sowing unemployment, misery, health and environmental disasters. The Green Deal is not a brake but an opportunity for our industry, sovereignty, businesses and jobs. So I say it here forcefully: Don't touch the Green Deal. It is our future.

Madam President, Cyclone Chido, which hit Mayotte, is not just a natural disaster. I say this because I refuse to see here the sign of inevitable inevitability. The disaster is social, health, political, because it is the result of a long history of domination, humiliation and abandonment. Nowhere are we prepared for climate disasters, which are always social disasters. But in Mayotte, extreme poverty has been the vector of much greater vulnerability. Already before the cyclone, a significant proportion of the population had difficult access to housing, food and water. Already she was struck by cholera. Abandoned by the French State and the European Union, crowded into slums, with failing public services, the people of Morocco were unable to cope with Cyclone Chido. Look Mayotte in the eye, and you will see the real face of climate injustice. Because, in the face of climate change, which is changing the trajectory of cyclones – which have multiplied in recent years in the region, as evidenced by the passage in Mozambique of Belna, Idai and Kenneth, all three in 2019 – it would have been necessary to take the measure of the risk and protect populations upstream. But Mayotte counts too little in the eyes of many, and France and Europe are not yet familiar with the culture of climate risk. So we are condemned to count the dead, victims of inconsistency and unpreparedness. As a matter of urgency, Europe must, yes, provide massive aid and push France to declare a state of health and social emergency in Mayotte. We have no right to forget the people of Mahoria. But it will also be necessary to learn the lessons of Chido. We need to anticipate extreme weather events, build decent infrastructure, strengthen civil security, deploy mobile hospitals and, of course, eradicate misery, to reduce high vulnerability.

Mr President, it is with great indignation that I rise today, on behalf of environmentalists, to denounce the arrest of Boualem Sansal, a man of letters detained for having dared to think freely, for having chosen speech rather than the silence of lead demanded by a beleaguered regime. We demand his immediate release. To demand the release of Boualem Sansal is to defend an essential freedom: that of writers, that of thinkers, that of creators. This freedom is not conditional. It does not depend on whether we share their ideas or not. A writer's freedom is never just an individual matter; It is the barometer of the freedom of a people. When you imprison a writer, you imprison an entire nation, because you deprive it of its thought, its ability to dream, to question, to evolve. Beyond, therefore, the person of Boualem Sansal, this cry that we are launching today is a call for freedom for an entire people, the Algerian people, who for decades have been suffocating. It suffocates under the weight of a gerontocracy that clings to power, under a locked system that refuses to hear legitimate aspirations for democracy, transparency and a better life. So, with one and the same impulse, we demand freedom for Boualem Sansal and freedom for the whole of Algeria.

Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, by choosing to appoint Raffaele Fitto to the post of Vice-President, you are beginning your second term at the head of the European Commission in the saddest of ways. Your choice, Madam, is not one of compromise, but of compromise with the extreme right. And this is a mistake, because the political situation requires neither complacency nor confusion, but on the contrary vigilance and clarity. My Italian friends, who are there and who face the modernised far right of Giorgia Meloni on a daily basis, see the appointment of Mr Fitto as an insult. Read again Recognising Fascism of the great Umberto Eco and you will understand that, even covered with a mask of respectability, fascism remains fascism. I want to relay here the voice of the millions of Europeans who refuse the path of dishonour. No political calculation can exonerate us from our duty of vigilance. Europe must remain a space of struggle against the nationalist retreat, which carries the idea of the permanent confrontation of the peoples. Faced with the extreme right, this xenophobic, conspiracy-minded and climate-sceptic extreme right, we must resist, resist and resist again. That's what environmentalists will do. But you, Mrs von der Leyen, after having installed the far right at the head of the European Commission, what will you do?

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, poverty is a political choice, and so is eradicating it. So let us make sure that at the time of choice the European Union prefers humanity to greed. Half of the world's population today suffers from hunger, lack of care, an uncertain future. So, of course, it is not the same, but Europe is not spared, with nearly 23% of the population at risk of poverty and social exclusion, that is 118 million citizens. And I want to recall here that the poorest are systematically victims of multiple institutional violence, a state pauvrophobia on a global scale. Despite the suffering of the people, Commissioner, we have not made the fight against poverty a political priority. That's not the case yet, that's not true! The fortunes of the world's five largest billionaires have more than doubled since the beginning of this decade, while 60% of humanity has become even poorer. That's what Lula reminded us of. And in fact, these richest are also the most polluting. Then we can act, it's time! For the first time, the G20 has committed to a global tax on the ultra-rich. But we cannot stop at the big speeches, it would be unbearable. So Europe, Commissioner, must encourage this choice and work towards its implementation. Taxing large fortunes is a necessity to meet colossal needs, but it is also a human, economic, climate and democratic imperative.

Madam President, today we should all be Valencians. Because this terrible tragedy has taken away brothers and sisters, our brothers, our sisters, our children, our parents, our neighbours, our colleagues and our friends. The terrible images of Valencia bring us together in the same humanity struck by the catastrophe, which is why I am ashamed, I am ashamed of the lack of respect and the instrumentalization, on the part of the extreme right and the right, of all these human lives that have been wasted. Because, on the contrary, these thousands of lives destroyed must remind us of a raw reality, a raw and brutal reality. We are facing disaster because our climate policies are still not adapted to the reality of disruption. And now is not the time to falter. This is not the time to give up under the pressure of those who, even today, deny human responsibility for climate change and ask us to turn our backs on the climate battle. Especially since you, on this side of the hemicycle, on the ground, are carrying out policies of concreteization, of artificialization, which prevent nature from protecting us from the climate disruption that has been created by humanity. So, I want to say to the far right: Your lies don't protect us, they expose us. Your denial does not relieve us, it drowns us. Know that we will always be there, in front of you, to defend human lives and climate action.

Mr President, my colleagues on the right and on the far right have asked for this debate on bureaucracy and competitiveness to once again sound the burden on social and environmental rights. Because, let us say it frankly, it is not the administrative complexity that matters to you, but the preservation of an economic model that is out of breath. When you say: ‘competitiveness’ means: ‘relocations’ and ‘job destruction’. You say: “administrative burdens”? I hear: "destruction of nature in the name of profit". You claim to have a monopoly on economic wisdom, but the laws of economics are not above the laws of nature. You actually have a real obsession with an economic model that rhymes with the destruction of nature, social and cultural rights, traditional solidarities and sometimes even human lives. Basically, you do not care about this essential simplification, which would improve the lives of Europeans. You are the very architects of this millefeuille, of this administrative bureaucracy set up to monitor the poorest, foreigners, associations or integration companies. To sum up my point: we will not allow social rights to be undone or nature to be destroyed with so-called simplification, which is nothing more than the mask of economic violence.

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.