Debate contributions by Chloé RIDEL

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament is about to vote for the first time on a key issue of security, sovereignty and democracy: I'm talking about transnational repression. Transnational repression is when a state pursues opponents, human rights defenders and journalists across its borders to silence them. It is a mafia practice, of unheard-of violence, outside of any judicial proceedings. It is a hindrance to freedom and democracy. In Europe, transnational repression is exploding, yet there is no policy to counter it. So, for the first time, through this report, the European Parliament will name this scourge and get out of silence. Because we must refuse that, on our soil, authoritarian regimes can prosecute their opponents, harass their journalists, intimidate their diaspora with impunity. Transnational repression includes assassinations, kidnappings and abusive requests for extradition, in particular through Interpol’s Red Notices. These are digital espionage, blackmail, harassment. It is a whole range of tactics deployed in our democracies to silence, harass, control human rights defenders, or even any citizen who criticises authoritarian regimes. All too often, this violence takes place at home in indifference, and even with some degree of complicity from our governments. It should be noted that a quarter of the world’s governments now use transnational law enforcement practices, of which 10 – including China, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, Iran and Belarus – are responsible for almost 80% of known cases. Transnational repression proliferates as authoritarian regimes themselves proliferate. On European soil, France would be the country most targeted by this phenomenon. Let's be clear: transnational repression is an authoritarian shadow that crosses our borders, undermines our rule of law, our sovereignty, our security. This repression is not only physical, it also invests all digital spaces to track down opponents to their privacy, with spyware on the phone, online harassment campaigns, theft of personal data, digital defamation. So – it must be recalled – acts of transnational repression are not accidents. They reflect the will of authoritarian regimes to impose their laws even in our democracies. We cannot turn a blind eye to this repression because we cannot accept foreign powers infiltrating our territories and silencing their critical voices here at home, where we have every interest in their being able to speak out. It is a form of interference that is taking place here, in Europe, and in silence. Every time a political refugee is harassed, spied on or threatened on EU soil without any reaction from us, it is the very principle of asylum and freedom of expression that crumbles. So yes, it is time to get out of our European naivety! So far we have allowed transnational repression: it is time to put an end to it. This is what I propose in this report, which puts forward a new European strategy to stem transnational repression, to build a European database that can identify and share information on the victims of this repression – no data currently exist. We also need to train our law enforcement agencies to recognise cases of transnational repression. We need to set up specialised units in each Member State and coordinate at European level. We could also extend Europol’s mandate so that it has jurisdiction over transnational law enforcement and rules on whether Interpol Red Notices are unfair or not. We can also sanction regimes and individuals who are guilty of this type of repression. We can also ban the export of spyware that is produced in Europe, which is then exported to authoritarian regimes before being used against us. In short, we can act! Since I started working on this report, I have received dozens of messages from families or relatives of victims of transnational repression, be they Indian, Uyghur, Russian, Turkish, Saudi, Egyptian... All victims are waiting for us to act. Then let's show ourselves worthy! Europe must remain a safe haven for those fighting for freedom and democracy.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in Bulgaria, the Russian destabilisation machine is running at full speed and threatens to cause this country, after a few years of building its democracy, to sink into illiberalism. There are worrying signals, such as the arrest of the mayor of Varna, an opponent. There are also laws that discriminate against the LGBTQIA+ community. This drift must be stopped now so that Bulgaria does not move from a model such as that of democratic Europe to illiberalism. Because this drift threatens everything that underlies our union, the rule of law, human dignity and freedom. Also, Europe cannot look away. And we must ensure, the Commission must ensure, that European funds for Hungary do not fuel political repression in that country, or corruption. We call for European funds to be examined until the independence of the judiciary is fully guaranteed. To defend Bulgarian democracy is to defend Europe.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we observe with concern that the ceasefire in Gaza is very fragile. This weekend, 54 Palestinians were killed, humanitarian aid was blocked again, and two Israeli soldiers were also killed. In the West Bank, settler violence continues, an 11-year-old child was killed by Israeli army fire. Then we knew very well that we could not count on the Israeli government, Hamas, that goes without saying, or Trump, to advance towards a just and lasting peace. That is why it is essential to remain firm and lucid. Now is the time to redouble our efforts. It would be unthinkable for the European Union to refrain from suspending the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel, from sanctioning Israeli messianic ministers who encourage settlement in the West Bank, or from supporting international justice to bring criminals to justice. It is also now that we must protect the actors of Israeli and Palestinian civil society, who hold the tenuous thread of hope, because they work together for justice, equality and a viable peace solution. I want to alert you to a very dangerous Israeli bill, which aims to deprive Israeli NGOs of funding by taxing them at prohibitive rates. Our Parliament absolutely must raise its voice on this issue. It's not now that we have to let our guard down. Now is the time to impose justice for peace.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in Afghanistan, the ordeal of women under the Taliban regime continues. On August 31, a terrible earthquake ravaged the country and women were intentionally forgotten under the rubble. The injured were isolated, deprived of care in the affected areas. NGOs did not even have access to women's camps. This is where religious obscurantism leads. What will happen to women's health in this country where they can only be treated by women, but where they are denied access to education and medical professions? It is a premeditated crime of absolute perversion. It has been four years since the Taliban meticulously disappeared 28 million women from public space. Forbidden to sing, speak or be, simply. As we have said and repeated, this is gender apartheid that must be enshrined in international law as a crime against humanity. But the struggle for women's rights around the world is not just a matter of justice; This is an international security issue. When we talk about European defence, we must not forget to invest in the emancipation of women and girls, because where there is more equality between women and men, it is proven that there is also more development and more security. The less safe women are, the less safe we will all be. Let us take this into account and invest in the empowerment of women and girls.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, two years ago, the terrorist attacks by Hamas on 7 October plunged us into dismay. Today, I am thinking of the 1,219 dead, the 251 Israeli hostages and their families. I am also thinking of all the Israeli justice and peace activists who are trying to pull their country out of a spiral of revenge. For the past two years, the European Union has been powerless to exert sufficient pressure on a genocidal Israeli government. Today, she is watching Donald Trump impose his ‘peace plan’ – let’s use quotation marks because we are still a long way from peace. If this plan allows for a ceasefire with the release of Israeli hostages, an end to the famine in Gaza through the delivery of humanitarian aid and Israel's commitment not to occupy Gaza, then yes, we must support it. But this ceasefire, however necessary it may be to alleviate the atrocious human suffering of Gazans and Israeli hostages, will only bring peace if it is followed by policies of justice for the Palestinians. To achieve this, Europe will finally have to choose between complicity and courage. All EU member states must now recognize the Palestinian state and refuse to allow the Gaza Strip to be administered by non-Palestinian technocrats sent by Trump. We must also validate the suspension of the association agreement between the European Union and Israel, the sanctions against Israeli ministers, the arms embargo and the punishment of war criminals...

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was in Ukraine, Belarus and now it is in Moldova: When citizens declare their commitment to democratic values, to the European project in a referendum like the one that took place in Moldova in 2024, Vladimir Putin unleashes his imperial madness. Vexed, frantic, manipulative and ridiculous, he agitates and interferes where no one had invited him. These are false information, montages, grotesque anecdotes, but also vote purchases. All means are good for Russia, for the tyrant and his oligarchs, relayed by unscrupulous platforms. When the one who disturbs is a woman head of state like Maia Sandu, it is double punishment. She will sometimes be accused of being psychologically unstable, venal, lying or even of being addicted to drugs. This Russian disinformation campaign in Moldova is called "Matriochka". It seeks to deprive 2.5 million Europeans of democracy. So, to our Moldovan neighbours, to you, Madam President Maia Sandu, we repeat, you can count on us to denounce this unbearable interference and defend peace and democracy on our European continent. You have your place in the European family. You deserve free, fair and just elections. Let's not let megalomaniac and corrupt tyrants steal your future, which is also ours.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, for almost a year, the citizen movement against corruption and for democracy in Serbia has not weakened. This non-violent movement is led by youth: Young workers, students who occupy their faculties, sleep on the floor in their classrooms, organize the largest demonstrations in the history of the country, travel their country, even by bicycle, to the smallest villages, to inform their people and convince them to stand up against the authoritarian drift of the head of state, Aleksandar Vučić. Today, this peaceful citizen movement is severely repressed. Protesters are beaten, arrested, intimidated by proxy forces composed of power nervis, who are masked, who are armed with iron bars. The authorities now explain that the citizens' movement in Serbia is a foreign conspiracy. Serbian demonstrations are treated, at their choice, as terrorists or Nazis. So what do we do? Almost nothing. In France, Emmanuel Macron even welcomed Aleksandar Vučić to the Élysée, without saying anything about the demonstrations. We would flatten ourselves, we Europe, in front of Trump, but we would not be able to support a citizen movement for democracy that is taking place on our continent, in a country that is a candidate for the European Union and that is asking for our support? What will become of our values if we do not defend them? They'll go out. I want to say to the Serbian youth and to all the citizens who follow them: Your fight is ours. Europe must reach out and weigh in for the organisation of genuinely free and democratic elections in Serbia.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the real face of the far right is corruption. A few months ago, Marine Le Pen was convicted in the case of the fictitious assistants of the RN. This very morning, in France, the headquarters of the Rassemblement National were raided as part of a new investigation into the financing of its last election campaigns. Just last week, the EPPO opened another investigation into another case of misappropriation of public funds by the RN Group in the European Parliament. It is not as if we were surprised ... The public prosecutor in France warned us at the conclusion of the trial of the fictitious parliamentary assistants of the RN: the RN intended to continue ‘making the European Parliament its cash cow’. In this new case, it is reported that the National Gathering Group misappropriated €4.3 million of EU funds between 2020 and 2024. This time, the funds were not used to finance fictitious assistants, but associations linked to the RN and companies chaired by relatives of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. There are EUR 3.6 million of orders placed outside any procedure, without a call for tenders, for impressions clearly overcharged to companies, such as Unanime. Unanime is a company registered in the name of Sighild Blanc, the wife of former GUD leader Frédéric Chatillon. The investigation report reveals that this company would have won a call for tenders from the RN in 2020 without even submitting an official application. This Unanime company, which presented itself as a printing company, does not in fact have any premises, equipment or even staff. It fully subcontracted the printing service and, by the way, pocketed a delusional margin of EUR 260 000. Despite these damning facts, ladies and gentlemen, the RN is crying out for scandal, for relentlessness. He will explain to us that we are all plotters, that we are trying to confiscate democracy, that he was not aware of anything, etc. The truth is that Jordan Bardella does not work for the French, in the European Parliament – he shines through his absenteeism, it is a matter of public knowledge – but rather works to plunder its resources with great diligence. Its only record here is the embezzlement of funds, and the bottom line is that the RN is trying right now to invent from scratch an alleged NGO climate funding scandal with the EU budget. How can you yell at corruption yourself when you're corrupt? Recall that the Rassemblement National is one of those who refuses to create a European ethics body, which we have been calling for for months – it is easier to understand why today. Europe can no longer turn a blind eye. It is not enough to react to the scandal, it is necessary to act, to prevent, to protect, and it starts here, in this Parliament, by refusing complacency with the corrupt.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes I wonder: ‘Which world are we living in?’ While Benjamin Netanyahu nominates Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, while these two are in Washington right now and they are again discussing the forcible transfer of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip, the nightmare persists in Gaza: bombing, hunger, thirst, death. Since humanitarian aid has been managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, at least 613 Palestinians have been killed in aid distributions. This dehumanisation of a population in distress is unbearable. Israeli soldiers come out of silence to say the horror of the war. They express their sense of betrayal in the face of Netanyahu. Yotan, a tank pilot, testifies: This war haunts me. No one told us about the government’s intentions, the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip and its subsequent resettlement.” In revenge and messianism, Netanyahu spreads terror without opening up any political perspective of justice and peace for the region. Even today, in Washington, he refused the creation of a Palestinian state and the eventual withdrawal of Israel from the Gaza Strip. So on 15 July, European heads of state meet history. They may be complicit in a war criminal or they may suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. They can still show that they are defending the two-state solution, for two peoples living side by side in equal freedom and security.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, after Boualem Sansal, this 80-year-old Franco-Algerian writer who is in an alarming state of health, who has been sentenced to five years in prison by Algeria simply because of his pen and his critical ideas, and whose release we have already asked for here, it is with astonishment that we learned last week of the arrest and subsequent detention of Frenchman Christophe Gleizes in Algeria. Christophe is a sports journalist, passionate about his profession, a lover of football and Africa. He was arrested by the Algerian police in May 2024, while investigating an iconic football club, the Jeunesse sportif de Kabylie, and the dark death of a Cameroonian footballer at the same club. He was just doing his job as a journalist. He was placed under judicial control for a year, and last week was sentenced to seven years in prison. This is the heaviest sentence for a French journalist in Algeria for more than a decade. His investigation had nothing to do with the apology for terrorism of which he is accused by the Algerian government. We condemn in the strongest terms the arbitrariness of these convictions without evidence and call for the immediate release of Boualem Sansal and Christophe Gleizes. These two cases show the authoritarianism of the Algerian government, which joins the many regimes that indiscriminately silencing and intimidating their opponents, the very ones who exercise their freedom of thought. Alongside our compatriots Boualem Sansal and Christophe Gleizes, I am thinking of the 300 Algerian political prisoners of the Hirak. We will not be silent until they are released!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my country, France, we often hear the words: On the far right, we never tried. So, I recommend to my fellow citizens who are of this opinion to look at what is happening in Hungary of Mr Orbán, the best European ally of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella. First, Hungary is the most corrupt country in Europe. Billions of European funds, our taxes, are diverted to useless projects or to the benefit of Viktor Orbán's personal friends. Moreover, his childhood friend, Lőrinc Mészáros, a professional heater, is now a billionaire and the richest man in the country. Freedom of the press has disappeared. Researchers are censored and chased. What about workers? Would the Hungarian extreme right be at the service of the most modest? Certainly not. In 2019, Orbán gave employers the opportunity to require their employees, who are already working at a rate of 40 hours per week, to be able to work up to 400 additional hours per year. Hungary is also Vladimir Putin's Trojan horse in Europe. Moreover, it takes it as an example when it attacks homosexual people who are continually discriminated against and pointed at for what they are, who no longer have the right to marriage and who are even now prohibited from demonstration and assembly. We will never consider that protecting our children involves teaching them hatred and homophobia. We will never accept that people on European soil are forbidden to demonstrate and we will not allow authoritarianism to destroy Europe from within. That's why we'll be walking to Budapest on June 28th.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are finally debating the suspension of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel, which is supposed to be conditional on respect for human rights. It's hard for me to understand what still needs to be debated since Israel's violation of all human rights is blatant, but let's go. Madam High Representative, the press tells us that you had on your desk, since October 2024, a report that accurately documented war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. But no revision of the agreement was then requested. Over the past year and eight months, 55,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 16,000 children. All infrastructure has been destroyed. In Gaza, this is genocide and we are still wondering whether the human rights clause of the Association Agreement is being respected. The International Court of Justice had denounced the genocidal risk as early as April 2024 and we are still there. European inaction is dictated by the right and the extreme right, whose history will not forget complicity. Earlier, we heard an Italian MEP from Georgia Meloni explain that the children of Gaza were children of terrorists and did not deserve our compassion. Genocide can still be heard in this Chamber! So, High Representative, the European Union must act immediately if it still wants to be able to claim international law one day. The Association Agreement must be suspended immediately. Take action!

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as we discuss today the European Union's report on the rule of law, I would like to tell you about a phenomenon that threatens the rule of law and democracy: corruption. Corruption looks like an iceberg. Only a very small part is visible and a very small part of the culprits are condemned. This week again, in France, we learned that Rachida Dati, currently minister, had received 300,000 euros from the company GDF Suez while sitting here as a Member of the European Parliament and that, at the same time, she was defending the interests of the gas sector and curbing investments in renewable energy with impunity. If corruption persists, it is because we do not have enough rules to prevent conflicts of interest, to make transparency on collusion with lobbyists, on the financing of political parties or to strengthen the means of justice. That is why we are currently negotiating a European anti-corruption directive that will lay down rules. But this directive states are doing everything to reduce its ambition. It is Giorgia Meloni's Italy that is blocking the adoption of this directive by refusing, for example, that abuse of office be punished as a crime. Abuse of office, I remind you, is an elected official who awards a public contract to a friendly company without a transparent procedure. This is what the European far right defends today around Giorgia Meloni. This is why, in 2025, we must always fight against the impunity of white-collar offenders...

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Israeli government's plans in Gaza are clear: The aim of the Israeli army is not to free the Israeli hostages of Hamas, but to destroy what little remains of the Gaza Strip and occupy it in order to drive out as many Palestinians as possible. Every day, about 100 Palestinians are killed, the majority of them civilians, women and children. If they do not die under the bombs, they die of hunger or lack of care, because humanitarian aid has been blocked since the beginning of March. 14,000 babies could die in the next few days if food doesn't arrive. Mr. Netanyahu can be arrested. It can be if the United States, Europe and the Arab States take responsibility. For the past year and a half, the European Union has been silent and has done nothing. The images of the children of Gaza should haunt us, but there are too many people here who have variable geometry humanism. Today, it is not vague calls to respect international law that we need, but actions. We must act, suspend and not just revise the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel. The leaders of the Israeli government must be sanctioned, an arms embargo must be imposed, and the countries of the European Union must finally recognize the State of Palestine. The world is watching us, history is watching us. Let's act!

Madam President, yesterday Viktor Orbán welcomed Benyamin Netanyahu to Hungary under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. On Monday, Viktor Orbán supported Marine Le Pen, condemned by the French justice for having diverted public money from this parliament for the benefit of her political party. Two weeks ago, Viktor Orbán passed a law that outright forbids the organization of the Pride march in Budapest: It is a blatant violation of the right to assembly, to protest, and a spit in the face of people who suffer discrimination because of who they are. And then you dare to claim freedom and freedom of expression. But what cowardice, what weakness! You forbid it because you're freaking out. Orbán wants peace with Putin, but he is waging a war against human dignity, against knowledge, against freedom. This Parliament must strongly condemn the actions of this autocrat in rupture with everything for which the European peoples have fought since the Enlightenment: freedom, progress, equality and human dignity. Mr. Orbán, we won't let you. We reject your medieval ideology and we will not back down on acquired rights, on abortion, on contraception, on the rights of trans and homosexual people, on freedom.

But if, you are perfectly right, there are more than 250 million children, in this case, who, in the world, are deprived of the right to education, for example. We must realize that our security will come not only from the necessary investment in military deterrence, but also from a robust development policy, because that is how we will help global stability and peace in the medium and long term. Therefore, when we talk about human rights, we must also give ourselves the means to finance development around the world, including the rights of women and girls. If we are aware that this reactionary international, of which I spoke just before, is also a masculinist international, we must defend - and I turn to you, Mrs Kallas - a feminist diplomacy and that we regard equality between women and men as a security policy.

Madam President, dear Mrs Kallas, while the world has never needed more peace and cooperation to face the challenges of the 21st centurye In the 21st century – starting with global warming – the spectre of war is resurfacing. Global military spending amounts to €2.3 trillion. They have never been higher and represent ten times the amount of official development assistance. The rise of authoritarianism, the reactionary international that unites from Donald Trump to Viktor Orban, is the biggest threat to fundamental rights and our freedoms. For us, the fight for human rights is not just a moral imperative or a matter of justice: it is our interest, it is our security. So let's do more! If we are, as we say, the continent of human dignity, let us show it! We have to defend international law everywhere, without variable geometry, and we are a long way from that – when we see what we accepted throughout 2024, including the abuses that took place in Gaza, of which we would never have accepted the tenth in Ukraine! Let's use our arsenal of sanctions and protect the international institutions responsible for delivering justice! Let's finance our military deterrence, but also our development!

I do not totally disagree with you, but corruption always needs at least two people, at least two parties to happen - here multinationals on one side, you are right, and political representatives on the other. We must therefore be irreproachable and able to resist the lobbying of multinationals – which would have to be more closely supervised, moreover – and even beyond, since this case shows us that, behind the multinational Huawei, there is the Chinese State. Our transparency rules must therefore also take into account the power of foreign states to influence. I also maintain my point, and I say it again: any case of corruption, even if it concerns only a few elected representatives of this Chamber, tarnishes the image of our institution as a whole.

Madam President, we thought we had learned the lessons of 'Qatargate', but no: it is the return of the seals to the European Parliament. The investigation into the Huawei case reveals that MEPs allegedly accepted between EUR 1 500 and EUR 15 000 to sign a letter in favour of Huawei, which described the European regulation of 5G as technological racism against China. On the Huawei side, we assume. Moreover, we even pay for amendments, they say. I do not have strong enough words to express my disgust at the corruption and greed of some Members of this Chamber. They tarnish the image of our institution and further undermine the trust people place in their political representatives. In this case, corruption comes from a former parliamentary assistant who went to work at Huawei. Could we know in full transparency how many former employees, MEPs, Commissioners have gone to work at Huawei? Secondly, we want the new EU ethics body, which seems so disturbing to the right and far right in this Chamber, to finally be created. Finally, we must give the means to the rules we set ourselves to be applied. It is therefore necessary to strengthen the judiciary and the European Public Prosecutor's Office by finally extending its area of competence to corruption cases.

Mr. Speaker, this is the story of a mother who intervenes between the militiamen who forced the door of her home and her two daughters of 10 and 17 years old: "If anyone is to be raped here, let it be me." This is the story of eight boys who went to pick up fruit, were ambushed, threatened with a weapon and raped. One of them was six years old. This is the story of 130 women who, last October, preferred to commit suicide collectively, rather than live broken in an annihilated country where they would be fatally raped. This is the tragedy of Sudan: 60,000 dead, 14 million injured, mass sexual violence, gang rape, forced marriage, kidnapping and sexual slavery. It is the litany of gender-based violence in Sudan today that is clearly aimed at the physical and moral annihilation of an entire population. When I hear that in this Chamber some of the Members are refusing to let us talk about the sexual and reproductive rights of Sudanese women, their right to contraception and abortion, I tremble with shame, because they do not know that women who get pregnant there after being raped go so far as to kill themselves or be denied by their own families. We must see that at the bedside of the militias of Sudan, there are foreign countries that supply them with weapons. We expect the European Commission to finally enforce the arms embargo, which has been in place since 2004 and is still not accepted. Every effort must be made to end the tragedy of Sudanese women and men.

Madam President, Donald Trump's sanctions against the International Criminal Court, heir to the Nuremberg Tribunal, are an unprecedented attack on international justice. It is also a new test for Europe. Are we going to let this fascinated drift deprive the victims of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes of justice? ICC judges are punished as criminals when they only enforce the law. They are often the only hope for martyred peoples and torn victims, which obviously Trump has nothing to do with. We know Donald Trump has problems with justice, but we won't let him trash everything. Europe must react clearly and firmly. It must protect the Court and its judges by activating the blocking regulation to counter the effect of US sanctions. This should not even be debated. Otherwise, what will we say to Ukrainian mothers whose children have been deported to Russia, if the court cannot continue its actions against Vladimir Putin? What will we say to Afghan women, walled in alive, who are hoping for justice after the court issued an arrest warrant against the Taliban? What will we say to the starving, bombed Palestinian civilians who are waiting for justice? Mr. Trump, you and your supporters are gargle to blow a wind of freedom on the world. The only freedom you breathe is the freedom of criminals. And here we will always stand with the victims and survivors...

Madam President, Cécile Kohler is a French teacher. Jacques Paris is a retired professor of mathematics. Olivier Grondeau is a seasoned traveler and lover of Iranian culture. He's my age, 33. More than two years ago, Cécile, Jacques and Olivier were brutally arrested during a tourist trip to Iran. Since then, they have been imprisoned by the Iranian regime on false charges of conspiracy against the Islamic Republic and espionage. No trial, no evidence, and detention conditions that amount to torture: placed in isolation in cells without furniture, windows, illuminated and monitored 24 hours a day, where they live and sleep on the floor. They can only get out three times a week for 30 minutes to get some fresh air. Why do they suffer this slow death? For nothing: Our compatriots are being held hostage, no more and no less. They are used by the Iranian regime as an instrument of blackmail against us. Here's the modus operandi a regime that has no respect for life and kills its children on a daily basis. I cannot imagine how Cécile, Jacques and Olivier feel from the back of their prison, with no prospect of getting out, but here I can call for the European Union to call for their immediate and unconditional release. For Cécile, for Jacques, for Olivier.

Mr President, 2024 was the warmest year on record, and the 1.5 degree warming threshold was exceeded. This has direct consequences, which we know: they are droughts, mega-fires, floods, cyclones, destroying habitats, displacing thousands of people and costing billions of euros. And it is always the most vulnerable who suffer the most from the consequences of global warming: 80% of heat-related deaths affect countries in the South, while by 2025 the world’s richest 1% of people had already exhausted their carbon budget – within 10 days. So, in the face of global warming, which knows no borders, we have never needed more cooperation between states. Ecology is inherently incompatible with the logic of everyone for themselves and the aggressive pursuit of the national interest. Yet a man, Donald Trump, has just been appointed President of the United States, for whom international relations rhyme with intimidation and brutality. He announced that he would dismantle the standards that protect nature, relaunch fossil fuel drilling or withdraw subsidies for renewable energy. Tomorrow, he may tell us that if the Earth is no longer habitable, we will be able to live on Mars. Against cynicism and the denial of global warming, Europe must be able to protect itself and intervene...

Mr President, in the early days of this truce between Israel and Hamas, I think of the Israeli hostages and their families as I think of the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed and those who survive today in a destroyed world. The terrorist attacks of 7 October were unbearable. They had to be condemned unambiguously, as Israel’s reply, which killed tens of thousands and destroyed entire parts of the Gaza Strip, including hospitals, schools and refugee camps, had to be condemned without stuttering. If one were to agree that the mass killings of Hamas were not an act of resistance, one must also be able to say that Israel’s reply was not self-defence. I denounce the moral and political bankruptcy of those who have not been able to hold these two ends, who have never ceased to have empathy with variable geometry – and there were many of them, in our European societies and in this Chamber. But it is not too late. This truce in Gaza is fragile, and it is now time to put pressure on it to last. Benjamin Netanyahu has already announced the colour, as he gives himself the opportunity to resume hostilities when he wishes. Once the ceasefire is permanently established, the time will come for justice and then for peace. I will always stand with those who want to find a solution so that the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can live in security and equal freedom side by side. The security of some depends on the freedom of others, and vice versa.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, corruption of public officials and politicians is a direct threat to democracy. This is an offence against the people. It undermines trust and weakens the public interest by diverting public funds and decisions to private interests. Corruption scandals are numerous, and I mean they are not isolated facts. They are the product of a system that allows these abuses because there are not strict enough rules to fight against conflicts of interest and corruption, both in the Member States of the European Union and in the European institutions where we are. I can tell you about the "Qatargate". I could also mention a case at home, in France, where the former President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, has just been sentenced today to one year in prison for corruption and trading in influence. I can tell you about Didier Reynders – colleagues mentioned this – or Henrik Hololei, a former Director-General in charge of transport at the Commission, who was offered several round trips in business class by the airline Qatar Airways, at the same time as he was negotiating the opening of European airspace for the same airline – and this gentleman is still working at the European Commission! Soon we will have to vote on a directive on the fight against corruption in Europe and in the European institutions. As one of the negotiators of this directive, I encourage this Parliament to adopt the strictest and most effective rules possible. We must raise the voice of European citizens, who want to be exemplary in the face of Member States that will do everything possible to empty this text of its substance. The anti-corruption arsenal will have to be strengthened, as it is the means for the money powers and also for hostile foreign powers to enslave us for their benefit. Repression will not be enough. We must also prevent corruption upstream, with strong preventive measures to combat conflicts of interest, back and forth between the public and the private sector, to make appointments transparent, in short, to decide to put an end to corruption, because if we do not act, we will lose our credibility and the trust of our fellow citizens.