Debate contributions by Pascale PIERA

Mr President, your democratic shield, Commissioner, is supposed to fight against the polarisation of political life. How dare you, Commissioner, when the division is maintained within this institution? We systematically exclude the members of the Patriotes group from its work in the name of a supposed cordon sanitaire. Commissioner, democracy is elections. And the elections have spoken. Our group is today the third political force in this Parliament: 84 MEPs, 19.5 million voters from 13 European countries, the largest delegation, larger than the Netherlands. Five patriotic parties led the European elections in their respective countries, and the only National Rally won the confidence of 7.7 million voters. So, Commissioner, your shield is not democratic. It protects itself against democracy, against 20 million voters in Europe. But do not doubt this, Commissioner, they will be even more numerous in the next elections.

Madam President, I would like to address my EPP colleagues in particular. The business world is watching you. You still have a chance to meet their legitimate expectations. The duty of care and the obligations of reporting, Some of you have given in to the blackmail of socialists who fiercely defend the Green Deal. Yet you know it better than anyone else and your constituents know it better than anyone else, all of these standards are killing our industries every day, destroying our jobs are the promise of our continent's economic decline. I appeal to your responsibility, to that of each of you. Don't sacrifice the future of your businesses for petty political calculations. The economic situation is too serious to escape. I propose that together we can put an end to this normative intoxication and finally return to true prosperity. I propose that together we vote against sending this text to a trialogue in order to be able, at the next plenary, to have a majority that is connected to reality, a majority that finally hears the distress of our companies.

Mr President, let us not be afraid of words, the Commission's work programme for 2026 is schizophrenic and delusional. Schizophrene, because after having stifled European businesses and citizens in a frantic normative intoxication, the same technocrats now propose to go back on their own texts under the inflated pretext of simplification. In reality, the omnibus packages on energy, taxation and the creation of a 28th regime and all the other programmes of the same kind are dizzying. Having everything complicated to simplify everything, what is this madness? In politics, this is called backpedaling. In psychiatry, this is called schizophrenia. This program is also delusional. Not content with methodically aspiring to the sovereignty of states, the European octopus will now frankly attack the lives of citizens. In truth, it is always the same false and leaning discourse in view of the good of all. We are therefore waiting for an intergenerational equity strategy, a European social security passport and, for the good mouth, an initiative for global health resilience. The Commission warmly calls this programme "the moment of Europe's independence". In the end, all that awaits us is fiscal dumping, social dumping, the creation of a European tax and an ever-increasing lock-up in a European economy. Titanic madman who will clash with the wall of debt. It is a world of excess, a world of vanity, a structure that can only fail.

Madam President, the democratic shield is a decoy. It is presented as a bulwark against hybrid interference and threats, but let us not be mistaken. Behind this protective façade lies a far more insidious threat to our fundamental freedoms. Who will decide what constitutes interference? What is a hybrid threat? This shield is actually a massive censorship tool that will muzzle dissenting voices under the pretext of disinformation. In Romania, elections were cancelled on the basis of biased reports. This shield is a pretext for imposing blatant and totalitarian hypocrisy. Defending democracy at the cost of Orwellian surveillance promises to stifle freedom of expression and civic space. This is to legitimize internal interference by disguising it as protection. This shield won't defend us from anything. It is an instrument of control that will transform Europe into a large-scale digital dictatorship. Let us wake up, defend a true free, sovereign democracy against these invisible gags.

Thank you for your suggestions, my dear colleague, thank you. I would like to point out that I am a specialist in freedom of opinion under the Soviet regime. I could tell you about it for hours, and from that point of view, it was not the reader who made the media. Fortunately, there were people like Solzhenitsyn, who were hidden, and wrote, and told the truth, and found their readership.

Dear colleague, thank you for your question. I have only one answer for you: The only regulator is the reader. And you see, in France as elsewhere, the traditional media, if they did not have subsidies, would not live. Why? Because their content, which is uniform and totally politically oriented, is no longer of interest to readers. That is why it is the media that are on the internet, alternative media for example, that are now capturing this audience, and it is very happy. I suggest you read George Orwell's book again. 1984In which lies the ministry of truth.

Mr President, may I remind you that the regulation we are talking about on the so-called freedom of the media is in fact one of the pillars of the European Union’s policy of freedom of expression. By establishing itself as the sole regulatory body for media control, the European Union is equipping itself with a dangerous tool that muzzles opinions that disturb it, as in Hungary or Romania. This Orwellian system violates all principles of freedom, the foundation of our democratic societies: freedom of expression, freedom of the press, plurality of opinion. In all truly liberal societies, the only regulator of media content can only be the reader, and certainly not the censoring technocrats in Brussels. I actually think you're scared. Your obsession with bringing your truth into the public debate has the unique goal of creating a Europeanist and globalist thinking machine. As such, your European Committee for Media Services, led by the Commission, is in fact a true propaganda ministry. Faced with this liberticide consensus defended by the left, by the center, by the right, we will always defend freedom.

Mr President, this non-objection procedure is yet another example of a very worrying underlying trend. Once again, the Commission's technocracy is caught in the act of violating the procedures laid down in the European Treaties. This was the case recently for the urgent adoption of the "ReArm Europe" plan. We can also mention the NextGenerationEU recovery plan or the Posted Workers Directive. None of these texts falls within the competence of the European Union under the Treaty of Lisbon. Member States have no lesson to learn from an institution that is unable to respect the treaties it claims to be the guardian of. The signing of international treaties should be a competence of the Member States only. Let us not allow the technocratic omnipotence of Brussels to overcome the sovereignty of states.

Mr President, the enlargement of the European Union was to be a catalyst for progress, Ursula von der Leyen promised us. Who can still believe it? If the enlargement of the European Union is a catalyst, it is the squandering of public money. Billions of which we lose track, while we call on the European peoples to tighten their belts. A note from the European Council puts the cost of enlargement at EUR 264 billion over seven years. If the enlargement of the European Union is a catalyst, it is that of instability and insecurity for our fellow citizens with gangs from countries that do not respect our laws. Let's not be fooled. Enlargement, and in particular enlargement to Ukraine, is finally the catalyst for the destruction of our agriculture. In the event of accession, Ukraine would become the first beneficiary of the common agricultural policy, with €10-12 billion in aid per year, which is 20% of the CAP budget. This unfair competition, coming from countries that do not respect our environmental and social standards, is an organized crime against our agriculture and we will not accept that.

Mr President, I naively believed that the European Union had finally understood the urgent need to ensure transparency in political life after the countless corruption scandals that have hit its institutions: ‘Qatargate’, ‘Pfizergate’, Green Deal affairs or Huawei. However, to believe your relentlessness against a Hungarian law that legitimately aims to publish the funding of NGOs and associations with political aims, you finally prove to us the opposite. Why do you become so aggressive when a sovereign country demands more transparency? Why are NGOs afraid to reveal their funders? Do they have anything to hide? While the European institutions are plagued by widespread corruption, while the allocation of European funds to civil society is completely hidden, the European Union certainly has no lesson to teach anyone in this area. I therefore invite you to sweep before your door and, above all, to let the sovereign peoples decide their own laws democratically.

Madam President, at least five dead, several billion euros in damage, a dizzying fall in GDP in a few hours: Here is the result of the giant blackout that hit Spain and Portugal. Here is the exact result of the forced march towards the green transition that the European Commission blindly imposes on us. Last February, in its annual report, the Spanish electricity system operator warned of the risks of severe power cuts due to the excessive penetration of renewable energies. In France, since March 4, the network manager has had to cut wind and solar farms thirteen times to avoid the massive blackout. The finding is final. In the name of a delusional and almost religious dogma, European technocracy has signed the slow death of our industries and the regression of the purchasing power of the European populations, for whom energy has become a luxury. Here is the ransom for the blindness that has consisted in swapping nuclear, stable and cheap, for expensive and unstable renewable energies. Suspension of the Green Deal is not an option, it is a necessity, in the public interest.

Madam President, I have just read it. My amendment is as follows: ‘calls for the exclusion of strategic sectors contributing to European food sovereignty from the EU’s decarbonisation objectives;’.

Madam President, on behalf of the Patriotes for Europe Group, under Rule 187 of the Rules of Procedure, I wish to table an oral amendment to the resolution on energy-intensive industries. Today, and more than ever, ladies and gentlemen, the issue of food sovereignty is at the heart of the concerns of the people of Europe. To guarantee this sovereignty, we must allow farmers to produce and finally get rid of the disastrous standards of the European Green Deal. In the spirit of the resolution presented and in support of this cause, which must reach consensus, my amendment calls for strategic sectors contributing to European food sovereignty to be excluded from the EU’s decarbonisation objectives.

Mr President, after the digital compass in 2021, the strategic compass in 2022, here comes the time of the compass for competitiveness in 2025. Decidedly, the European Union seems to have lost the north, not knowing what it is doing or where it is going. Compasses, shields, other omnibuses will not be enough to turn the eyes of the European peoples away from the collapse they see every day. The creators of compasses are the ones who condemned the industry with the disastrous Green Deal. They are the ones who created the carbon border adjustment mechanism gas plant. They are the same people who ransacked the auto industry, millions of jobs, and who are now proposing a pseudo-strategic dialogue and an endless increase in the financial burden. Europeans will not want to pay this price and no longer want to be paid in words. It will soon be time for accountability.

Madam President, out-of-control organised crime, shootings, racketeering, criminal activities of all kinds, everywhere, without any part of the territory now being spared. This is a real descent into hell for Sweden, while the European average of gunshot deaths is 1.6 per million inhabitants, it is four killed in Sweden. 363 shootings in 2023, ten dead in a single shooting six days ago. The Swedish Prime Minister has the courage to face things. This situation is Sweden's heavy ransom for an irresponsible policy of open migration. Today, 200 gangs from immigration make the law, from sub-Saharan Africa, Turks, Kurds, a Syrian network, everywhere it is the law of the mafia that settles, entering all spheres of society. Recruitment methods are dizzying: boys from 15 to 20 years old are looking for minors from 12 to 15 years old themselves, girls are seduced before being prostituted. It's time to face it. Over the past 20 years, Sweden has seen the share of its non-Western population increase from 2% to 15%. This is the result of a blind and ultimately criminal migration policy. The Swedish government gave itself ten years to win the battle. And we, in France or elsewhere, wherever crime is omnipresent, where will we be in ten years?

Thank you, dear colleague, for these two questions, which I will take pleasure in answering. The first answer is that, precisely, Fabrice Leggeri had to leave Frontex because he intended his agents not to be distributors of asylum application forms. The second question, dear colleague, is that, in my former life, I was a magistrate, and that I was in charge of an administrative detention centre for illegal aliens for more than ten years. So, if you like, I know the issue of migration, and I know it particularly well because I am not one of those Members who are disconnected from reality. I, Sir, have seen what criminality related to mass immigration is.

Madam President, it took several decades of a Europe open to all winds for the European Council and the Commission to officially declare that there is indeed a link between organised crime and migrant smuggling. One might have thought that this first discovery of the real would herald a salutary reaction; Well, that's not going to be the case. The fact that torrential flows of migrants are exploited by smugglers is self-evident. Whose fault is it? Does Frontex do the work for which it is intended? The answer is no. Frontex officers are only distributors of asylum application forms and not fighters of smugglers. Is there any dismantling of networks? Never. Is there any trial? Never. Is there any search for complicity? Never. Does anyone mention the organised crime of irregular migrants on European territory? The answer is no. The truth is that organised crime by smugglers will now be used as a pretext for a safe corridor through which migrants will enter. And this is the big scam of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum. The fight against organised crime by smugglers must not be a propaganda weapon intended to justify this disastrous pact, with its quotas of immigrants that will be imposed on European countries. The real fight against organised crime, against smugglers, against migratory flooding: This is what people across Europe are now demanding as a matter of priority. Attention: They're looking at you!

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, do you mean corruption? So let's talk about corruption, and let's not pay ourselves words. Since 2023, Ursula von der Leyen has multiplied anti-corruption texts, with a proposal for a directive, the creation of an interinstitutional ethics body, and the harmonisation of rules on transparency of interest representation. Only one question arises: Will these measures apply to Ursula von der Leyen? What transparency are we talking about, with regard to the billion doses of vaccine purchased outside any legal device, by telephone, and in defiance of all procurement rules? How transparent can the European Parliament be in the light of the Qatargate scandal, which has splattered our socialist colleagues? What about the Committee of Inquiry? What are the procedural steps? Meanwhile, in defiance of any democratic spirit, Renew MEPs accept their refusal to work on the Anti-Corruption Directive, precisely as long as Hungary presides over the Council, on the grounds that "this would amount to discussing the fences of the hen enclosure with the fox himself". Frankly, we're dreaming! So I'm asking you the only question that's worth asking today: Do these institutions still have any legitimacy to teach anyone any lesson?

Mr President, after having been President of the Central Bank and so closely involved in the guidelines of the European Union, Mario Draghi points out the total ineffectiveness of European policies, carried out with broken sticks to the detriment of the peoples. As we know, our continent is no more than a shadow of itself in terms of industry, trade and migration. Does Mario Draghi make a mea culpa? Never. To explain this disaster, in which he actively participated, he shows the shortage of skills as if it were a shortage of goods. In an attempt to remedy this, he projects us into the phantasmagoria of the digital and green transition by promising us, in an unbearable new language, ever more Europe, ever more money for hypothetical educational programmes, and in reality ever more intrusion for what remains of sovereignty to sovereign states. Mario Draghi avoids any fundamental thinking and prefers to enslave our youth to the screens and Wokist propaganda. However, restoring a level of competence to our youth means encouraging knowledge of its roots, the richness of literature, work and critical thinking. These are all conditions that are not currently guaranteed by the European Union.

Madam President, Commissioner Schinas, 10 000 or 30 000 agents, that is not the question; Frontex should not be a host agency. The external borders of the European Union must not be the sieve of migratory flows that the peoples no longer want. This is precisely what the French no longer want. This is precisely what other European countries no longer want. In her speech of 18 July 2024, reiterated today, 9 October, Ursula von der Leyen called for the reinforcement of Frontex staff. I'm asking you, you can triple the manpower, but what for? Triple the number of staff to make sense of Frontex's mission? Is it a question of continuing to finance immigrationist projects? Is it a question of reforming the content of the missions of the agency's staff to ask them to continue distributing asylum forms? We could recruit, Commissioner, tens of thousands of staff that the problem would not be solved until Frontex's tasks were clearly redistributed. Frontex staff should no longer be made up of non-frontier activists or fundamental rights pilgrims. The urgency is to be firm in the face of crime in our European countries and in the face of the migratory flood that affects our entire continent.