Debate contributions by Majdouline SBAI

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one in ten women in Europe lives with endometriosis. One woman in ten suffers from chronic disabling pain that hinders her daily life, her work, her mental health. Endometriosis is responsible for 40% of infertility cases, yet it takes an average of seven years to get a diagnosis. Seven years of hearing that ‘it’s normal’, seven years of coping with suffering and silence. No, this is not ‘normal’! Imagine that this pathology affects men, that every month they feel pain equivalent to that of a birth without epidurals. We would have had a great European plan, huge sums of money would have been invested ... But the 10% of Europeans concerned did not have this chance. Although, thanks to patient associations, progress has been made, the future does not look brighter. Indeed, the European Commission is considering easing the control of endocrine disruptors, which are present in our everyday products and alter women’s hormonal systems. Endometriosis is an indicator of our flaws in real equality between women and men. I ask the European Commission to speak out in favour of a European strategy to combat endometriosis. Commissioner, imagine that Europe is helping to find a cure for endometriosis. Imagine that it prevents it from happening. Imagine that we guarantee professional inclusion for patients, that we actually take care of the care: we would change the lives of European women and those of future generations!

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on 4 April 2025, China adopted a law banning the export of rare earths. The blindness of our institutions has allowed China, for decades, to be in a quasi-monopoly on rare earths, with 61% of production and, well, 92% of processing capacity. So you put us in front of a Cornelian choice: on the one hand, making opaque deals with a dealer we have nurtured for decades, ignoring the cry of workers in the sacrificed industry; on the other, ‘do not give in to domination, dependence and blackmail’ – I quote Ursula von der Leyen here at the G7. This is self-evident: There is nothing to dealinate with those who have enslaved the Uyghur people, those who deny the self-determination of the peoples. Nothing to negotiate in the face of questionable business practices. Another way forward is strategic autonomy. Not the race for neocolonial extractivism, no, economic and ecological planning, sobriety of uses, the circular economy, the protection of workers and consumers. No sector, no country should be sacrificed. Europe is strong when it is united and democratic, independent of China’s influence strategies.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 12 million duty-free packages arrive here every day. Shein and Temu are always cheaper, always faster, but at what price? To make us addicted, they turned online shopping into a real game. Finally, they have just been fined EUR 40 million in France, because more than half of their promotions are false price reductions. They lie to consumers and make fun of the authorities. They have set up many deceptions on their websites, and I invite you to go to their applications to see it. Non-conformity of products, non-conformity of information on their composition or on the use of personal data, sale of toxic cosmetic products for professional use, counterfeits ... the list is long! And what about the conclusions of the investigations conducted by NGOs and the press on human rights! For it is the workers who pay the heaviest price, whether in Asia or here in Europe. Our stores are closing, city centers are desertifying, social plans are multiplying. So thank you for this report, to which we contributed. The message is clear: Let’s enforce our rules, our laws, and punish before it’s too late!

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has exclusive competence in international trade and it keeps repeating that it is an instrument to promote our values. Article 2 of the Association Agreement with Israel states that its relations with the European Union are based on respect for human rights. So how can it be maintained today? How can we even ask ourselves the question of its maintenance? When Israel calls for a forced displacement of 2 million Palestinians, blocks humanitarian aid, targets hospitals, when the United Nations talks about genocide, when 200 European NGOs ask us to suspend it, when we know that free trade in industry and agriculture is a major support for the Israeli economy – 24% of the country's exports are to the 27 Member States... So how long are we going to flout international law, our commitment and our texts? Europe has a crucial weight in the global balances. It must not be used to fuel situations of war and terror. I tell you with seriousness, Commissioner, this is an issue of civilisation for our continent.

Mr President, there is an urgent need: We must save European steel! The director of ArcelorMittal has announced that all steel sites in Europe are under threat. France risks losing all of its blast furnaces. As the United Kingdom has done, we must react quickly. I therefore propose the following amendment to paragraph 8 of the report we are voting on: "Parliament expresses its deep disapproval of the decision of the ArcelorMittal Group to cut up to 1 400 jobs in Western Europe, almost half of them in France; Points out that the group made a profit of EUR 1.3 billion and paid out more than EUR 1.5 billion to its shareholders in 2024; Calls on the Commission and the Member States to take measures to ensure that companies receiving public support cannot, as ArcelorMittal does, close industrial sites, draw up redundancy plans, relocate their activities, pay dividends to their shareholders and abandon their green transition objectives; Calls on the French Government to take all measures within its power to protect workers and preserve the steel industry as a strategic industry;

Madam President, scarce critical raw materials are indispensable for our industrial and energy transition. The sobriety of uses and products, the efficiency of our industrial processes and the recycling of these materials should be at the heart of our strategy. However, in today's strategy, the Commission is prioritising the extractive industry. This race is taking place right now in third countries, in Africa or elsewhere, in a disturbing opacity. We are very concerned about respect for human and environmental rights. We are even more concerned when we see that due diligence and traceability requirements in the supply chain of companies are now under threat in our institution. A few months ago, we moved from worry to anger when we saw the conflict escalate in the DRC, where Rwanda is smuggling to finance armed militias. We obviously ask to suspend this agreement and, as co-legislators, to be able to review all the actions taken.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with this plan, the European Commission is trying to stem the crisis in the steel and aluminium industry. An example of this crisis: ArcelorMittal, which, after the closure of these sites in Denain and Reims, warned that all of its European locations were threatened. Commissioner, you have said that Europe should no longer be a playground for third countries. So that this does not remain a wishful thinking, there are several conditions. First, protecting our businesses, reducing imports, strengthening the fight against unfair competition from China and the carbon border adjustment mechanism. Secondly, to focus on "Made in Europe"» for European needs, especially in the automotive industry, and to do so with the regions, because the steel industry, with its 500 sites, is also a regional industry. Thirdly, to participate in the decisions taken by the bosses of the steel industry, so as not to let them decide on their own, especially when we invest alongside them in green steel. We hope that the plan will bear fruit, especially as today it is necessary not only to contain successive crises, but to have a sustainable strategy for our industry and to fully involve workers.

Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to highlight a subject that was not raised in our debate. This is not surprising, because when we talk about restructuring, we think of large sectors and large industrial companies. Yet there is a sector in Europe that employs more than 8 million people, 86% of whom are women, a quarter of whom were born outside Europe, 70% of whom are undeclared. I am talking about the domestic work and personal support sector, i.e. those who do your housework and take care of our seniors. It is an atomised, fragmented, destructured sector. By 2030, 37 million Europeans will be over 80 years old, which means that this sector will continue to grow. Despite the European Pillar of Social Rights and the European Care Strategy, support for the structuring of this sector is largely insufficient. Evidence: On 7 January 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that national employers did not comply with the obligations laid down in the Working Time Directive. What actions will you take to better manage the changes in this sector?

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, when I listen to some of you, I wonder where you grew up. I grew up in a territory that has lost tens of thousands of industrial jobs in two decades, due to the increase in production capacity in third countries and the lack of anticipation of ongoing economic changes on the part of companies and public authorities. Today – and already since the previous mandate – with the Green Deal, the public authorities are finally at the rendezvous so that we can catch up on the decarbonisation of our economy and our energy independence. This is an opportunity for our industry. So yes to support for charging infrastructure, professional vehicles, social leasing and "made in Europe"! Let’s not back down today against companies that paid billions of dividends in 2023! Let's be even visionaries, by really investing in a strategy for ecomobility!

Madam President, Commissioner, the future of industry will be green and social or not. Those who say the opposite, here on the far right, lie and know it very well, because planetary boundaries do not manipulate themselves as information is manipulated. What challenges our industry is not ecology: it is unfair competition and dependence on fossil fuels, which weighs down our trade balance and is a culpable fragility in the current context. There is an urgent need to protect our internal market and support European procurement for European needs. This year, steel and automotive workers are announcing 300 000 redundancies. A company should not be able to distribute record dividends one year and dismiss the following year. In France, this is called the privatisation of profits and the collectivisation of losses, which creates a huge sense of injustice and leads to the rise of populism. Support for the economy and businesses should now be conditional on the participation of employees and public authorities in their governance. This is the real deal.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, are you familiar with estradiol 17? It is a steroid hormone produced by the ovarian follicles and the placenta. It has been synthesized to become a growth hormone, in animal husbandry, to make animals fat and grow. In 2013, it was recognized that residues of this synthetic hormone are found in our bodies, in our surface waters. That is why, in its great wisdom, our institution has banned its use and the importation of meat containing it. Estradiol 17 promotes cancers, especially breast cancer. It is even the leading cause of cancer in non-smokers. Last month, the European Commission presented us with a report indicating that, firstly, the Mercosur countries used estradiol extensively and, secondly, pharmacological controls were flawed there. So how, by importing 90,000 tons of meat from Mercosur, will you guarantee our health? Will you also offer a compensation fund? Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, there is no alternative for women. There is no alternative for the children of bereaved mothers.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago in Brussels, trade unions from all over Europe came to alert us: 300,000 jobs are at risk in the steel and automotive industry. So yes, today there is an alliance, an alliance of those who lie to the workers. They lie by wanting to entrust our industrial future to shareholders and billionaires alone. Any evidence? They propose Elon Musk for the Sakharov Prize; they want to deregulate our markets, in particular digital and digital platforms; they celebrate cryptocurrencies; At the same time, they are voting against strengthening trade union rights and the place of employees in corporate governance, against equal pay for women and men, against a plan to combat youth unemployment. Today, they also want to tackle the duty of vigilance, while guaranteeing human and environmental rights in Asia or elsewhere also means fighting against unfair competition and supporting reindustrialisation in Europe. These lies of the far right are a poison for our democracy, and today those who are complicit in them will also be complicit in its collapse.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, mining is a source of bloody conflict all over the world. The riches of the subsoil are sometimes a curse for the populations: violence, soil poisoning, deforestation. That is why, during the previous legislature, as part of a policy of sustainable cooperation with a dozen countries in the world that have rare minerals, we, the European Union, committed ourselves to promoting their economic development, transparency, traceability, peace, preservation of the environment. And we have not kept those commitments. What is happening today in the DRC proves this. As early as June 2024, the United Nations denounced the smuggling practiced by Rwanda. We knew that because we included in the memorandum of understanding with Rwanda the obligation to intercept smuggled minerals. Today, it is no longer smuggling, but occupation and open war. So, to stop the flaring, we demand the suspension of the agreement, the embargo on minerals labeled Rwandan and absolute vigilance, in the future, on these memoranda of understanding.

Madam President, in her famous novel 1984George Orwell has this sentence: Everything was lost in the fog. . . the lie became the truth. So, instead of navigating on sight in this fog created by Donald Trump, in scattered order, let's go back to the facts. Europe's steel industry is going through an unprecedented crisis, with exports halving in ten years. But Europe's trade surpluses to the US account for only 0.3% of our GDP. We don't have to be afraid, we have to act. Let's relocate the production of the goods we consume to Europe, because our internal market is our strength. Let us strengthen the Green Deal, our strategic autonomy and our sovereignty, especially in food and energy. We must no longer let the shareholders of multinationals alone decide our industrial future. And above all, let us stand in solidarity in the face of this attempt at intimidation, these attacks on our democracies. Together, we can become a social and ecological power.

Ms Trochu, your political group is constantly attacking environmental policies. These policies protect our health, but also our fertility. Let us talk, for example, about the REACH regulation, protection against toxic substances, which, as we know, cause 1.4 million premature deaths in Europe. Your group is tackling it, and yet you want to defend European demography, you want to defend the birth rate and you want to delay the ageing of the population. So, what consistency in your speech?

Mr President, Commissioner, like Emmanuel Macron, who talks about demographic rearmament, you want European women to have more children to wage an economic war. Raising a child today costs on average €300,000, and in many countries, working and caring for this wonderful little being is a path for the fighter, for lack of efficient public services, which you are tackling with austerity. But the most worrying and disappointing thing about this strategy is that you are not talking about infertility. One in five couples is on the PMA route. These couples suffer at a time in their lives that should be nothing but joy, because they have been exposed to agrotoxics, endocrine disruptors, PFAS. And what about the 10% of women who are in medical wandering because they have endometriosis? Today, faced with them, there is something indecent about your injunction to have more children in the name of competitiveness. In the face of this scourge of infertility, when are you going to make proposals to us? When are you going to act?

I have two things to say. The first is that those who are now attacking the Green Deal, the economic regulation of markets and trade agreements, are the same people who want to enter our market today to make more money, and you are an agent who defends that economy in the name of public freedom. The second thing I want to say is that we environmentalists defend the ‘Buy European Act’ – a piece of legislation that promotes the purchase of European products – i.e. the possibility of producing locally and sustainably for our local markets. I talked about it, as well as about relocation and reindustrialisation, to which we are very attached.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in France we have an expression to describe the rise of fascism. We are talking about "brown pestus". Unfortunately, this epidemic is once again hitting our democracies. Hannah Arendt said that when you attack justice, science, the free press, you create the conditions for totalitarianism to emerge. This is what we witnessed yesterday at Trump’s inauguration. When you are sick, the first step to healing is to get out of denial. The next step is to protect ourselves and our economy: regulating platforms that manipulate information, strengthening our strategic autonomy and sustainable and fair partnerships with third countries, and prioritising the relocation of the economy as the only way for our industry to prosper and for European citizens to have confidence in their institutions.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when Mayotte is counting her deaths and experiencing chaos, there is something indecent about the debate launched by the ECR Group. Climate disasters have claimed 600,000 lives in 20 years. But if human lives mean less to you than money, here's another number: €228 billion a year is the cost of our inaction. As to whether the Green Deal destroys our competitiveness, between 1980 and 2010 in France, 2 million jobs were lost in industry, and today it is the circular economy, the local economy and the decarbonised economy that are recreating activity. Competitiveness means giving yourself the means to win. But win what? In the 20th century, we won the challenge of creating an area of peace and democracy unique in the world. Today, let’s take on the challenge of the green transition. Before being elected here, I was an entrepreneur. I'm telling you: Let's not let down all the companies that are already investing.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ‘to prosper today is to give ourselves the means to guarantee the continuation of the human adventure in twenty or thirty years’ time. To be prosperous is therefore first and foremost to be healthy.” These words by Éloi Laurent have a particular resonance with our debates today. Yes, the right to quality drinking water is a universal and fundamental right. I'm from France. My country has been sanctioned twice by the European courts. It is late to protect its population from pollution. The new revelations on the deterioration of the health quality of Perrier mineral water in Vergèze and on the complicity of the French State bear witness to this, as does Prime Minister François Bayrou’s inauguration speech, which does not once mention the word ‘environment’. We environmentalists call for all means to be used to guarantee the effective right to drinking water. We call for sanctions against states that do not apply the Drinking Water Directive and distribute water contaminated with nitrates.

Mr President, the twelve recommendations of the Budapest Declaration seek to make Europe's economy more competitive, particularly in industrial terms. However, it was not until point 10 of that declaration that the social aspect was addressed. However, let us remember here that it is the workers who create value in companies. In France, 2,000 jobs are at risk of disappearing in the automotive, steel and aerospace sectors. In my region alone, last week, more than 1,000 redundancies were announced at Auchan, and nearly 2,000 jobs are threatened at ArcelorMittal. Here I give my full support to the employees. Then the causes are known: unfair competition and deregulation of business practices. We must now act quickly to prohibit redundancies in the event of profits in companies, to insert more mirror clauses, to put in place more customs barriers, to put an end to free trade agreements such as Mercosur, and to invest together in our strategic autonomy.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, foreign interference has always existed. Today, they benefit from the power of digital and the virality of social networks. Commissioner, in your introduction you seemed reassuring, you defended a plan, but I rather feel that we are overwhelmed. In France, researcher David Chavalarias demonstrated very clearly that the 2024 European and legislative campaigns were influenced, in particular for the benefit of the far right, in particular by Russia. And do you know Team Jorge, a company that, with its farm of computer robots, specializes in the manipulation of electoral results and democratic dynamics? It was courageous journalists who revealed its existence. So today, how are we going to support the investigation so that we are no longer lagging behind, but ahead of the curve to protect our democracies?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in ten years, the turnover of e-commerce has tripled. In France alone, the turnover of the Shein site amounts to EUR 1.63 billion. It is an economic tsunami. So yes, yes to consumer protection, yes to the end of the exemption from customs duties below 150 euros of purchases, yes to a precise investigation into suspicions of Chinese subsidies and unfair competition, yes to the end of false advertising, yes, still yes to the control over toxicity, intellectual property and the security of personal data. Yes, but when? How many European brands and brands will have closed in the meantime? How many lead-intoxicated children's shoes will we have bought? How many young people will have adopted detestable consumer behaviors for our future? So, yes to all this, but when? I'm telling you: Let's act now!

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Amazon is home to 10% of the world's wildlife and 34 million people. This world heritage of humanity is under attack from all sides, including fires and deforestation. European countries are responsible for more than 30% of these, because of global trade in agricultural products. There is now a profound contradiction between our discussions this afternoon and the recent decisions taken by the Commission, such as postponing the implementation of the deforestation regulation to 2026, accelerating the signing of the Mercosur agreement, which will further aggravate this situation, by wanting to trade trees for cars, or – a subject that has not been addressed – the destruction of the habitats of certain wildlife species puts us at risk of new pandemics due to new zoonoses, such as COVID-19. We must act today, rejecting Mercosur, immediately implementing the commitments of the Green Deal and finally, listening to our youth, farmers and indigenous peoples.