Speeches

Mr President, for years this Parliament has been acting with impunity against our political group, forcing the discourse of foreign interference without bringing any tangible elements. The only weapons at the disposal of the Glucksmanns and other Loiseaus were to chain the accusations to the limit of defamation, forgetting that, if the voters have been praising our party for fifty years, it is precisely because it defends only one nation, France. Unfortunately for them, when serious institutions like the judiciary decide to take matters into their own hands, they go to your Socialist Group. To drown your responsibilities and include us in a scandal that concerns only you, you call it a foreign attack on democracy and this European Parliament. In fact, it is simply a corruption scandal of the Socialist Group. I therefore ask that the ING2 Committee, which has preferred to attack our group at every meeting, without seeing the corruption taking place in those same offices, be immediately suspended, that its Chair be held accountable and that all Members who have made false accusations finally sweep their doors.

Madam President, Commissioner, your view of the youth of our different nations is completely misguided. This motion for a resolution on the European Year of Youth is therefore an opportunity to recall a few points. You only talk to the youth of the metropolises, the one you represent, wearing the veil, while the Iranian youth are desperate to get rid of them. The one you represent adheres to Woke, LGBT and progressive ideas, whereas their real and immediate priority is the end-of-months and a saturated labour market. For the rest of the youth, the observation is simple: you do not listen to her and she does not listen to you. The most glaring proof of this ideological manipulation is the EYE days in the European Parliament, the theatre of the militant extreme left, where feminist, Islamist FEMYSO workshops, spaces for discussion on racism and spaces for debate on transgender identity coexist – the truth hurts to hear, I know. European youth need to know that this is how you represent their everyday concerns. For you, youth is just a metaphor for the left. You systematically bring together in this Chamber young people from the grandes écoles, NGOs and federalist associations, making them believe that these people represent European youth. There is no plurality of opinions every time you give them the floor. This is evidenced in particular by your online survey on European values. A veritable flop, which received only 5,000 responses out of the 88 million young people on our continent. Youth is the easy argument to justify your federalist, leftist and anti-nationalist campaign. This is to make the people of Europe believe that the new generations are ready to ratify the United States of Europe project prepared by old federalists who are disappointed by the election results. But if there is one constant since modern society has existed, it is that young people have always refused to think in their place. Let us not put in the same ideological basket the young people of our 27 different nations. Youth are on the front line in the face of the crisis, in the face of entrepreneurial difficulties and in the face of international competition. The truth is that our young people face the same challenges as the rest of Europeans every day. So, for the next European Year of Youth, get out of your progressive delirium, meet them in different countries, rather than bring the sons of the bourgeoisie from the rich metropolises of our continent.

Mr President, after the failure of COP27 on climate, mainly linked to the exorbitant and above-ground demands of the European Union, the great leaders will meet in Canada for COP15 on biodiversity. As governments redouble their efforts to halt the rapid deterioration of our biodiversity, we learn that a large number of heads of state will not be present in Montreal. Protecting our environment therefore stops at geopolitical quarrels. But let us not worry, because lobbies will be present, like Greenpeace for example, funded by the wind turbine lobby, whose inefficiency and impact on our environment are well known. The European Union believes that our citizens must bear the burden of climate change alone. Beyond the Atlantic, the US powers are putting their economies first, while China and Russia clearly have other priorities. Let us add to this an absolute refusal to question the harmful free trade treaties and the dogmas of globalization. As for COP27, the millions invested for this conference would have been much more useful to professionals in our territory.

Madam President, over the past 30 years, Europe has managed to control the spread of diabetes and the majority of deaths associated with this disease occur due to a diagnosis that is too late. Efforts to democratize prevention tools must therefore never falter. But over the past 30 years, Europe has also done its utmost to develop the causes of diabetes: you have caused a retreat into the service professions, brought a hyper-sweet diet en masse, promoted an unsuitable nutriscore and preferred to fight for quotas in companies rather than fight stress at work. At the same time, the ageing of the European population will mathematically increase the number of people at risk. European health policy should have proved its worth during the pandemic. On the contrary, it has shown its incompetence in the face of the world, leaving the borders open and bringing in masks from China and vaccines from the United States. A serious questioning of the lifestyle promoted in Europe and your health policy is therefore necessary. Eliminating the causes at source means avoiding stabbing hospital services in our countries a second time.

Mr President, Commissioner, the weeks follow one another and are similar in this Chamber. We are faced with yet another text that once again overwhelms our continent. For you, Europe is not green enough and for you, our citizens are not doing enough. But efforts, our nations have made, the proof of this is: Europe is the most environmentally virtuous continent, far ahead of China or the United States. Our citizens are experiencing an unprecedented energy crisis, even as they struggle to recover from the pandemic. So, in this context, your decarbonization goals are simply suicidal. So far, the European Union's utopian choices are untenable – carbon fraud, unachievable climate neutrality, wind farms slaughtering our ecosystems, European taxpayers' racket for the benefit of developing countries, blackmailing climate migrants or the exorbitant role given to the Commission in future COP negotiations, etc. The list goes on. And all this for what result? This will result in European impoverishment and decommissioning against the background of obviously climate guilt, while you leave your hands free to all ultra-polluting globalist projects. In front of you, we advocate an ecology that values the local rather than the global, a realistic ecology inspired by our companies on the ground.

Mr President, Commissioner, while France is paralyzed by the blockages of service stations and shortages, you are now proposing that we put maritime freight and everyday motorists in the same bag. A container ship emits as much sulphur oxide as a million cars. So how can you ask motorists for their efforts as these super-cargos continue to roam the oceans? Sea freight is the armed arm of globalization that you have promoted and that ends up destroying our industry. The car, for its part, is the first means of transport for our citizens, especially the most modest. In the second case, you talk about alternative fuels in the car, but again, you are manipulating Europeans. Your report makes the feat of considering that the only alternative fuel is electric. Proof that technocrats are clearly not engineers. At a time when the price of electricity is exploding, where is bioethanol? Where is the essence of synthesis? You promised us a Europe of research and new technologies. But you bring us the Europe of child labour in lithium mines. As the energy crisis worsens by the day, you have chosen your ideology in the face of the salvation of Europeans.

Madam President, we must of course welcome this text, which makes it possible to put an end to barbaric practices, which still exist in 2022. How long we have waited, to see species die out year after year by putting forward only prevention tools or almost! Hunting trophies that cross customs, trade in protected species, both animal and plant, are scandals that must no longer go unpunished. Criminalizing groups and individuals is the only tool that can put an end to this situation. There is a need for firm rules and penalties that must be applied, in constant liaison with the first concerned on the ground: scientists, associations and policies. However, even when the fighting is noble, the European Commission remains an institution that abhors the sovereignty of our nations. This text gives prerogatives that once again encroach on the Member States. Yet it is the states, both here and on the continents affected by mass extinctions, that are the most democratic and, above all, the most just scales of decision-making.

Mr President, this summer, France was hit by devastating fires that crippled the local economy during the tourist season. Before being the cause of global warming, these fires are first and foremost the cause of the policies advocated by your camp for years, those that prohibit preventive burns and strategic cuts, for example. What happened in France is a replica of the fires in Australia two years ago. Yet the European left has not learned from this: the climate emergency has become an easy pretext to clear your customs in this kind of situation. It has also become a justification to allow you repeated political coups de force subjecting European nations to your insatiable will of ever-increasing effort. But who will make these efforts? It is again and again the European middle class that has become proletarian, the industries that survive in this painful investment climate and the inhabitants of remote territories, forgotten by your metropolitan-centric policies. Extreme weather events are obviously influenced by global warming, but no policy will make them disappear, especially not in a Europe that pollutes extremely little compared to Chinese, Indian or American giants. Your policy is to ask the European worker, already strangled by the health and energy crisis, to finance the entire planet’s effort on his own. How long will it take for this Parliament to trust professionals in the field and their know-how rather than regulate their practices in a sectarian way? Those who have a share of responsibility for the events of this summer should not ask us for further efforts.

Mr President, third countries have been competing unfairly for too long by flooding our countries with cheap products made by slaves, it must be said, and with disastrous environmental standards. Result: our industry is suffering, our know-how is being exported and over-consumption is hitting our continent hard as you cheerfully sign free trade treaties, the real gravediggers of our planet. You waited for the scandal of so-called imported deforestation to finally act. But with every environmental disaster caused by globalization, your response remains the same: more and more globalism, and this text proves it once again. On the other hand, by giving full powers to NGOs, you are encroaching on nations, their competences and sovereignty. This text will only weaken the voice of a Europe at the end of the race and significantly weaken the Member States. To the unelected NGOs, the Trojan horses of the lobbies walking the corridors of this Parliament, let us oppose real protection measures. Stop your hypocrisy and the free trade treaties that go with it. Protecting forests is synonymous with protectionism and sovereignty, don't you displease.

Mr President, when do you plan to establish a green transition project that is both environmentally sustainable and bearable for Europeans? This is obviously not the case today, as this draft regulation is purely utopian and schizophrenic. First, only 6% of flights, long-haul flights, generate half of aviation’s CO2 emissions. So why focus only on short-haul flights? There is no logic in this project. Then you do not seem to realize the financial cost of such developments. You are forcing airports to build overpowering charging stations by 2025. However, nothing in this text clearly indicates how high airports and airlines will be subsidised. Thus, this project will bring to the carpet a good number of European airlines such as Ryanair, EasyJet and many others, which will see unfair foreign competition, once again. Nor does it address the scarcity of resources. The production of this green fuel is based on the use of agricultural and forestry residues, algae, biomass or used cooking oils. These resources exist in such small quantities that the rate of production to meet demand will not be sustainable. In addition, by producing more green fuel, manufacturers will mechanically increase their carbon footprint. Because in reality, the idea behind this project is not to reduce the carbon footprint. Above all, anything that is not electrical is once again an enemy to shoot down. You no longer hide your wish to see the plane disappear without thinking about the millions of people for whom the plane is the only means of transport to travel to metropolises from remote territories. As you assail Europeans with your above-ground projects and coercive regulations, the European Commission is acting out of hand by signing free trade treaties at will. Instead of recognising that it is this economic model that is dangerous for the environment, you prefer to blame the middle-class European who takes a flight from Paris to Budapest once a year, and again. This is yet another ineptitude.

Mr President, Commissioner, you therefore find that the religion of free trade is far above the environment in the values of European officials. Can you promise us that no other free trade treaty will be signed? Otherwise, I strongly encourage you to listen to the majority of citizens who are more than fed up with the schizophrenic policy pursued by this Parliament.

Mr President, Commissioner, the preservation of biodiversity is essential, both to combat global warming and to safeguard animal species. You say you want to preserve our biodiversity. Either. However, your natural hypocrisy returns to galloping when it comes to signing free trade treaties with the entire world. The latest example is the one concluded on 30 June with New Zealand. Did you know that a return flight between Auckland and Paris pollutes more than a European household in a year? Do you really think that the supercargos that roam our oceans do not destroy our marine biodiversity? You are lying to the Europeans, because all the efforts that our fellow citizens make to fight global warming are nullified by the perverse effects of your disastrous economic policy. This model destroys our biodiversity and makes animal and plant species disappear. So yes, to meet the challenge of COP 15, you will have to abandon this outrageous globalization and intensify scientific research.

Madam President, the rapporteurs are presenting these three reports of the climate package with great determination today. There is obviously a climate emergency, but what you call a "climate emergency" is actually a will to force acceptance of your ideological project. Rather than proposing a text more favorable to the popular classes, you have locked yourself up to negotiate an even more binding report. The right and the socialists have agreed on all possible compromises. So here are the irresponsible consequences of your policy: coal will have to run at full capacity to power your renewable, expensive and inefficient energy; the prices of imported products will rise to finance the environmental efforts of other continents, without any guarantee of results, for that matter; finally, European citizens will have to respond to the all-electric overpriced injunction, even if it means exploiting child labour in the cobalt and lithium mines on the other side of the globe. But obviously, no one feels concerned about this ignominy. According to your speeches, it is by increasing environmental constraints in Europe that we will solve the global climate crisis. Europeans must not take full responsibility for environmental measures on their own while other continents wait to calmly recover our market share. Finally, another hypocrisy: gas and oil. By wanting to get rid of Russian gas and oil, you are opening the door to American shale gas and its disastrous ecological impact. You are well aware that we will have to reopen even more coal-fired power plants, as in our German neighbours. Faced with your ideology, we propose an ambitious investment in research, in hydrogen, in synthetic gasoline, or in biofuels. We will set up a real network of short circuits. Finally, as we keep repeating, these efforts will be useless if the EU continues to allow these harmful free trade treaties. Another model of common sense exists, and it was also acclaimed last week in France.

Mr President, rapporteur, one last proof of your total disconnection from reality and your radical ethnocentrism was needed: you bring it to us here with these violent standards, which take the motorist, our industries, and therefore the whole European economy in turn, to heart. Together with you, the European Union has become the union of the great metropolises, and nothing else. Your voters, half of whom depend on the thermal vehicle on a daily basis, thank you for these new restrictions, which make their journeys from home to work increasingly expensive and longer, without providing a reliable solution. Our industries have made the greatest sacrifices to please European dictates. But for Parliament, and especially for you, rapporteur, nothing is ambitious enough. You don't even hide your goal anymore: eliminate all combustion engines within untenable deadlines and impose the electric car for all, regardless of the price. So it is easy for you, who only know the plane, the taxi, the train... But it is difficult for everyday workers to access it. The climate emergency obviously imposes ambitious new decisions, but why should Europeans, and especially the most modest ones, always bear the burden? Go live in the province with liberal nurses, artisans or commercials. The world is not limited to Brussels or Strasbourg. You are well aware that in order to produce electric batteries, rare metals must be extracted from mines in China, Congo or Bolivia, under disastrous environmental and human conditions. The text never mentions the thousands of peasants forcibly displaced after having their farms polluted with fine dust. This is shameful! The text never mentions overconsumption of water linked to extraction. Your policy is totally hypocritical. The finding is therefore clear: The European Union, which gives lessons in humanism to the whole world, wants to shift pollution from our big cities to the Third World. In France, these new standards have led to the uprising of the yellow vests, two fingers away from bringing down the Macron government. Your decisions will have consequences. It is time for you to finally act in the interest of your own voters.

Madam President, for years this Parliament has advocated unlimited globalisation, preferring the global to the local and favouring the interests of large groups against the expectations of citizens. All free trade treaties have been signed. All ultra-liberal policies have been deployed. Congratulations, because today is the time for the assessment. Because of these harmful choices, plastic pollution has become the most visible consequence of this disastrous globalization. We obviously know that the environment cannot assimilate this plastic and we obviously know the unacceptable repercussions on animal life, especially aquatic life. Plastic is a carrier of substances that are extremely toxic to the human body, as we know, but persistent organic pollutants are also present in our daily lives. The first urgency is therefore to alert our fellow citizens to these major risks. But when the Commission finally decides to act, the solutions proposed are, as always, a matter of haste, without any consultation with the actors on the ground. Experts, such as professionals in the wood sector for example, warn us against some of your solutions and deplore the lack of consultation. Our interlocutors are professionals and not your idols like Greta Thunberg. So, we know, for you, ecology can only be punitive and federalist. But the one we propose is localist and national. You have made the environment a private club that has applauded the most anti-national and hysterical proposals. Meanwhile, the citizens most concerned never see the action of the European Union, except to undermine their work and punish them.

Madam President, the new IPCC report is particularly alarming. It unsurprisingly demonstrates the effects of global warming on our environment and reveals the obvious: it is your policy and the business model you are promoting that is behind it. The degradation of ecosystem biodiversity is such that the situation already seems irreversible, and it aims to intensify as the climate warms. The whole planet is subject to the effects of climate change, which you seem to see without ever questioning your choices. Of course, we are all concerned about these conclusions. But what solutions do you propose? More and more punitive ecology without ever denouncing the real causes. More and more programmes that are binding and disconnected from the daily lives of our citizens. You have given the keys to production to countries that apply environmental standards at a discount. You have promoted a consumerism that requires more and more raw materials. You have signed free trade treaties without taking into account the concern of Europeans and the impact on our production standards. You are locked in this excessive liberalism that is blowing up the carbon balance of maritime freight, while our industries, once, gave us autonomy in many areas. And above all, you have led us into an energy and food war without being aware of the serious consequences for the daily lives of our citizens. In the face of the increasingly punitive and infantilising policy promoted by this Parliament and by your friends in the Commission, there is an urgent need for common-sense answers. Your business model is outdated. Liberalism must give way to localism. Uncontrolled globalisation, which has made us dependent on foreign countries, must give way to a system of short circuits and self-sufficiency. Coal and wind turbines must be put in the closet to trust nuclear power, clean and efficient energy. Only this common sense policy will finally revive our economy while protecting the planet. The rest will only serve to nurture your ideological fantasies.

Madam President, Parliament must once again vote on the Environment Action Programme. European citizens will be delighted to learn that, once again, they will have to go to the cash register to feed the crazy ambitions of the Commission, who have already forced the sacrifices imposed here. All in the name of a policy that is more punitive than truly environmental and, above all, dictated by pseudo-ecologists who have never left the city centre of the Brussels capital. The deadlines are shorter than ever and the agricultural sector is identified as one of the main drivers of environmental degradation. You demand zero pollution, which is as absurd as it is utopian, and you want an end to fossil fuels. The ambition is good, but it is a question of defining the European Union’s ecological policy and not of reciting the psalms of the Greta Thunberg sect. How can we have so little regard for our industries, small and medium-sized enterprises or farmers? How can we ask for efforts from those who have already been dying for years, who discover every year that their bills will increase and their incomes will decrease? The answer is simple: Those who write these regulations know absolutely nothing about the social and economic reality of our continent. Their green ideology stems from international congresses and lunch debates in European capitals, not from dialogue with key stakeholders. No one here can deny the degradation of our environment, the loss of our biodiversity or the disappearance of species. But the solutions you propose are always the same and serve absolutely no purpose, except to provoke once again the anger of our people. To top it off, instead of adding a paragraph on localism, the indispensable support for nuclear energy or the promotion of European products, you repeatedly mention discrimination and gender. Congratulations, your quota of leftist references has been reached! In what part of this text is the denunciation of free trade treaties? Nowhere. Producing on the other side of the world, in countries that do not care about the environment, and bringing these goods home is the main source of pollution. In what part of this text is the promotion of relocation? Nowhere. Where is the defence of industrial self-sufficiency reducing the carbon bill of transport? Nowhere. In which part of the text is research encouraged? Again, nowhere. A green Europe is possible, but it requires common sense, dialogue and environmental protectionism without taboos.

Mr President, as Europe recovers from the economic slump caused by COVID, Europeans now have to bear the cost of sanctions against Russia. As prices soar and bills skyrocket every day, businesses and citizens are losing even more hope in Europe's ability to protect them. This Europe that prefers to go to war rather than take care of its people. The geopolitical context in Ukraine has pushed up the price of gas. As a reminder, Russia supplies 45% of European gas imports. Unfortunately, this crisis confirms what we have been denouncing for several years: the European Union has never been energy self-sufficient. For years, Brussels technocrats have been shutting down our energy industries, sending thousands of Europeans into unemployment. Today, Europe is at the foot of the wall, ready to import American shale gas, the environmental impact of which is well known. Today, after making the mistake of wind power and anti-nuclear, we are forced to reopen coal-fired power plants. Its good performance in terms of CO2 emissions makes nuclear energy the most decarbonised energy in the world. France is proud to have been a pioneer in this sector. This know-how spread across the continent, until the European Union put a stop to it. It is a real economic and energy suicide.

Madam President, for too long public opinion has been alerting us to the deadly drift of this sector. Outrage in principle does not make a policy, especially when the tragedies follow one another, like those thousands of cattle stuck at sea on two cattle vessels last year. Or these cargo bins loaded with animals that sink in total indifference. It is time to profoundly question our industrial model that has transformed the living into consumables. Europe must have special and uncompromising legislation that ensures dignified and painless transport, stricter temperature standards, local slaughterhouses and systematic upstream checks. Being exemplary in the face of animal life is not only a civilizational duty, it is also to ensure a quality product for the consumer. Once this battle is fought, let's tackle the root of the problem: free trade agreements, overconsumption, unfair competition. All these ills are fundamental problems which the European Union, however, leaves unpunished. Worse still, it has made it its ideological dogma. In the face of ultraliberalism, let us adopt localist solutions. Let's promote small farms that make the quality of European products, let's promote short circuits and above all, let's finally set up a dialogue with our small craftsmen rather than decide everything blindly from Brussels. Animal welfare is not a second category subject that should be left in the hands of European technicians. It is a societal subject in its own right and involves profound moral values of our society. During this committee of inquiry, my colleagues from the ID Group and I managed to find compromises in the right direction. To the globalism advocated by this Parliament, we have opposed short supply chains, while proposing common sense measures favouring our agriculture and our farmers. The result is a satisfactory compromise that can finally open a first gap in the industrialization of life. Animal welfare is at the heart of my political commitment and it is therefore without reservation that I will vote in favour of this text.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, defending Europe's rich biodiversity and ecosystems is our duty to future generations. This objective is achievable, but we must not fall into the dogmatism to which we are accustomed in this Parliament. Many European officials have converted to religion, or even the sect, Greta Thunberg. For my part, I am a realistic Member of Parliament who knows Europe’s place in the world and the difficulties of our respective nations. Against a background of climate guilt, this resolution therefore calls for massive transfers of wealth from the Member States to the rest of the world. Hoping for a change on the part of the Third World is a utopian vision that will have no effect, no matter how much money is distributed. Once again, we are fighting the ecological battle alone, with most of the global pollution coming from America and China. COP26 is yet another example of the European paradox. We are constantly being asked to make additional efforts while at the same time ratifying harmful free trade treaties, the worst examples of wild globalisation and a carbon footprint. We cannot do ecology without borders and it is therefore imperative to return to common sense by producing in Europe and France. While ecology is about measures, boundaries and borders, the EU makes it a means of centralisation in favour of the global, the borderless and monopolies; whereas ecology is about democracy, participation and cooperation, the European Union makes it a matter of bureaucrats and capital managers. That is why it is urgent to return to a national ecology that will preserve our way of life, an ecology that will guarantee a better future for us, for all, and not to a punitive ecology that will once again impact our fellow citizens.