Debate contributions by Céline IMART

Mr President, Commissioner, on 27 July last, the President of the European Commission, at the bend of a golf course, endorsed a completely unbalanced agreement: free and duty-free access for US imports compared to 15% for our European exports. I measure the complexity of the subject. I know the unpredictable nature of the American partner. I am aware that our companies and our sectors need clarity and stability, but Europe has been trampled on, the European Parliament ruled out, the agreement reached in opacity. It's not a compromise, it's a capitulation. Add to this the promise of 1,200 billion euros of European investments on American soil: energy, strategic sector, more artificial intelligence, not to mention promises of military purchases. We are financing with our taxpayers' money the reindustrialization of the United States, and in doing so, we are sacrificing our sovereignty. Commissioner, continue these negotiations, defend the dignity of our States and the interests of our sectors and, if renegotiation proves impossible, use trade defence tools such as the anti-coercion tool that this Parliament has given you. Because if Europe is an economic giant, this disastrous negotiation reminds us that we remain a political dwarf.

Madam President, High Representative, 703 days. 703 days since Hamas snatched civilians from their lives in an attack of unprecedented brutality. 703 days of unbearable anguish for families and 703 days that we and my colleagues in the EPP Group are hammering out the same demand: the immediate release of the hostages, which is essential for any negotiation. However, during this time, some countries such as mine have chosen to recognize the State of Palestine, but the conditions are not yet met, because it is, by recognizing the State of Palestine, the massacres of October 7 that are valid. Recognition of the State of Palestine should be considered after the release of the Israeli hostages, with the effective provision of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza and the establishment of a ceasefire on both sides. Europe cannot negotiate under the threat of weapons. Mutual recognition between the two states is indispensable, but to want to build this in the midst of chaos is a madness that would compromise the credibility and unity of Europe. It is no longer time for the diplomacy of good feelings. We need to mobilise our energy for a single priority: the release of hostages and an end to the suffering of all civilians.

Madam President, Commissioner, the CAP is the roots and wings of Europe. Sixty years after its debut, it remains more strategic than ever, at a time when the food weapon is being used as a rattle by the powers of this world. Agriculture is a pillar, not an adjustment line of an Excel table, and the budget devoted to it would not survive a decrease of 15 points. A merger into the single fund would put support for agriculture in competition with support for the construction of roundabouts. Commissioner, you are a sincere ally of the agricultural world. You proved that by breaking with the old demons of the Green Deal and the announcements of simplification in the spring. Your intelligence on the ground contrasts with the vertical and disconnected management of President von der Leyen, to whom you will pass on a saving track from me on the €5.4 billion LIFE programme. This funding serves a nebula of NGOs that undermine the foundations of our agriculture by claiming to defend the environment. An example in my region, where one of them, who receives €9 million, engages in banned protests to confront law enforcement by proudly displaying Palestinian and LGBT flags. This money would be better used in the yards of our farms.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, America First It is more than a slogan, it is a weapon that threatens, taxes and works. While Trump is arming himself with an axe to make us bend, the Commission is sharpening his butter knife. Too nice, too weak. Too late. When you negotiate in front of a bulldozer, you have to be a wall, not a gruyère. Today, our European products taxed at least 10%, it is not just an accounting line. They are farmers who worry about their future, families who fear losing everything, territories that hold their breath. I prefer Europe to be at the negotiating table rather than on the retaliatory menu. But what is being prepared is a deal at a discount, necessary, but not sufficient. Our companies no longer wait for Brussels and negotiate directly in Washington, and they are unfortunately right. For the American president, a builder who employs thousands of people weighs much more than a poorly elected president and solitary governance. The reality is that we must prepare the next step, implement the recommendations of the Draghi report, protect our strategic sectors and genuine economic sovereignty. If Europe plays chess against a player who eats the coins, let's try to always have a spare game.

Mr President, Madam High Representative, I am delighted that the European Parliament is organising a debate on the situation in the Middle East, because this subject deserves better than the gestures of a few influencers who are struggling with 'likes' playing to scare themselves on a sailboat. On October 7, 2023, the world turned into horror. Hamas terrorists, backed by Iran and some UNRWA operatives, carried out a barbaric attack, exterminating civilians, women and children. This massacre is not a detail of history. It is the starting point of all human suffering in the Middle East, which is a real heartbreak. Meanwhile, Iran is arming, financing, fuelling chaos, from Gaza to Lebanon, from Yemen to Syria. This theocratic regime, obsessed with Israel's destruction, is the regional arsonist who threatens global balance by making proxy war a state doctrine, with Hamas as its armed arm. So yes, it must be remembered, Israel is our ally and our economic partner, and one of our bulwarks in the face of Islamism. And he has to stay that way. Between terrorism and democracy, my choice is made. France and Europe would be well inspired to do...

Mr President, Commissioner, the European External Action Service is a centrepiece of our policy of influence. He can't just do all-out diplomacy with the European checkbook in hand. If it continues to support, by funding UNRWA, structures infiltrated by hatred such as Hamas, it commits much more than budget lines: It commits our credibility. Humanitarian aid is a reflection of our own values. Yes, milestones have been set. Yes, audits and strengthening of internal control systems are planned and we will be extremely vigilant to ensure that they are effective. No offense to the left and the Greens, one cannot save the honor of a policy by turning a blind eye to what it finances. In Gaza, guarantees are melting down faster than hostages are released. European taxpayers' money cannot be used as a blank money to finance Hamas ideology, hatred, violence and indoctrination, especially of children. I welcome in this text significant progress in terms of budgetary rigour and ethical vigilance, including the clear message that reconstruction in Gaza will not begin until the hostages are released, the explicit recognition of the problem of the contents of textbooks, the strengthening of audits and controls of funds by the European Union, and the need for compliance with UNESCO standards. This text therefore marks a welcome step forward. We will ensure the implementation of our long-standing requirements. Every euro paid must be traceable, conditioned and controlled so that European money stops circulating anyhow and anywhere, perhaps even in tunnels.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one hundred and thirty-eight days is how long Boualem Sansal, a Franco-Algerian writer, has been imprisoned in Algerian jails. For more than four months, Algeria has been dishonoring itself by locking up a man because he has exercised his most basic right: say and write what he thinks. Boualem Sansal is a free, deeply European voice, a major author, winner of prestigious literary prizes, and who has offered Europe very enlightening works on the dangers of totalitarianism and religious extremism. Its commitment to freedom of expression and freedom of conscience embodies what Europe stands for, what it is, what we are. I quote: "History is not history when criminals make its ink and pass the pen. It is the chronicle of their alibis. And those who read it without burning their hearts are false witnesses. Boualem Sansal is now an elderly European citizen, sick, a political prisoner, who defends himself against a regime that has rejected his lawyer simply because that lawyer was Jewish. After the almost unanimous adoption of a resolution by our Parliament last January, I still call on the European institutions to act for his release. Almost unanimous, because the political groups of the Left and the Greens have selective indignation. They prefer to support a tyrannical regime rather than defend a European citizen. Abject and anecdotal betrayal, so insignificant are their political combinations and calculations in the face of Sansal's strength and struggle. Boualem Sansal could have been a bridge between two shores, and is instead treated as the enemy of a system that has decided to break it for example. To close one's eyes to one's fate would be to send a chilling signal to all those who still dare to think and write freely. That would be betraying an exemplary man, an exemplary work, and an exemplary fight. It is his freedom that is at stake, but it is also ours. Let's act!

May Hamas stop using civilians in Gaza as human shields, and Israel can stop bombing hospitals and schools! A negotiated two-state solution cannot be found as long as Hamas continues to deny Gazans any possibility of being democratically represented. I have no lessons to learn from you, Madam, nor from groups like yours, which, under the pretext of anti-Zionism, are openly anti-Semitic!

Madam President, Madam High Representative, for the past week thousands of Gazans have been demonstrating to be able to decide their future democratically, outside the Islamist and terrorist yoke of Hamas, the same one that has arrogated to itself, without elections since 2006, the monopoly of representation, made death a communication plan and used civilians as human shields in schools and hospitals serving as intelligence centres for terrorism. This tragedy takes place with the active complicity of UNRWA, a UN agency long infiltrated by Hamas, which covers tunnels instead of digging wells and participates in the indoctrination of children in textbooks, the diversion of humanitarian aid and the detention of hostages, thus collaborating with those who murdered in cold blood the youngest hostages in the world, the babies of the Bibas family. High Representative, I demand, together with my EPP Group – and I will be very attentive to your answers: first, the end of EU funding for UNRWA; secondly, the immediate release of the Israeli hostages as a precondition for any ceasefire; third, free elections in Gaza, out of the hands of Hamas terrorists.

Mr President, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Rule 60 of Parliament’s Rules of Procedure, I would ask you to put the referral back to the vote in order to start the interinstitutional negotiations on the report on macro-financial assistance to Egypt.

Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for avoiding the pitfall of a 'Farm to Fork' bis. The tone is voluntarist, you talk about food sovereignty and you put production back at the heart of the vision and the cow in the middle of the field. However, intentions must be acted upon. On the ground, farmers are sweating and it is time for the administrations to make this real change of direction transpire in the texts, that they understand that we have changed mandate and that they themselves have changed commissioner, and not that they pretend to be a little deaf so as not to abolish the dangerous texts from the previous mandate: the regulation on the transport of animals, which would only impose insurmountable constraints on farmers, without any economic, social or environmental benefit; the Forest Assessment Framework, which proposes a gas plant to overwhelm our foresters, with no guarantee of results; the LIFE programme, which must stop funding extremist environmental NGOs, which are trying to weaken our agriculture under the guise of opaque and militant altruism. This is a way to save money by looking at agricultural budgets. Commissioner, this vision is the first stone to stop the infernal machine. We must now put common sense back at the heart of European texts and at the heart of the Commission's administrations.

Mr President, the geostrategic interest in bringing Mercosur closer to Europe in a context of trade war is undeniable. But hell is paved with good intentions and our farmers already taste too much the scent of sulfur: galloping normative inflation which, under the guise of ecology, deprives them of factors of production; lack of competitiveness affecting their mental and financial health; competition from agricultural powers that think of producing before thinking of regulating. Commissioner, what will you do to ensure the reciprocity of environmental standards when Argentina, as announced, comes out of the Paris Agreements? What will you do when this disastrous rebalancing mechanism directly threatens the legal sovereignty of the European Union and the Member States? What will you do to swallow the democratic coup when you split this agreement, thus denying national parliaments their legitimate right to ratify it? And what will you do for our suffering European farmers? A paltry compensation fund of 1 billion euros to buy you a good conscience by telling them "Die quiet, we pay you to disappear"? So enlighten us on your score before writing the requiem of our farmers fallen at the front of unfair competition.

Madam President, Commissioner, while the United States is conquering Mars, the European Union is funding NGOs to lobby. Five and a half billion euros to defame farmers, already burdened with standards disconnected from the field, to attack our companies already suffocated by burdens and obligations of all kinds, to denigrate our nuclear flagship, yet decarbonised and reliable. NGOs are profit-making. They have become professionals in capturing public money. Who are they? What are their goals, apart from denouncing those who create, produce and innovate on our soil? The Commission does not know this, as it did not know that Erasmus funds were allocated to Islamist entities. The left and the Greens didn't know either. They, however, so quick to denounce foreign interference, seem to accept without difficulty those of NGOs, particularly environmental NGOs, which are their armed arm and have fun breaking cops in certain demonstrations in France. I urgently demand consolidated data on the European funds allocated to all NGOs whose sole purpose is the destruction of our vital forces. Second, a precise evaluation grid to allocate those funds. Finally, if there is a lack of inspiration, CAP auditors can always be advised on transparency in their accounts. We are all subject to transparency. They must be too. Europe must be a power at the service of its citizens and not a distraught philanthropic club.

Mr President, thank you. And thank you, Commissioner, for listening in person to this debate on mental health in agriculture, a topic that is more than dear to me as it explains the very reason for my involvement in politics and my presence in this Chamber today: fighting for those with whom I was, less than a year ago, on the dams; I fight for my brothers-in-arms, my brothers of concern, who work more than all the other professions – between fifty-five and seventy hours a week – who earn less than all the others – since one third of farmers in France earn less than the income from active solidarity – who commit suicide more than all the others – one every two days, in France – and who undergo the permanent ‘agribashing’ of ‘there is only one way’. The issue of mental health is fundamentally linked to the lack of consideration and recognition faced by farmers – in media discourse, including on public news channels, where activist journalists are on the streets. It is to carry their voice that I leave my farm and land every week. Do we want more NGOs? Do we want more activists? Or do we want more farmers? Self-proclaimed environmental organisations are feeding our farmers, who are the most virtuous in the world, to create a buzz, to attract subsidies and to file endless legal appeals. That's why they're in my sights. My parliamentary work will therefore be divided into three parts: securing strong budgets to support production; the abolition of standards linked, in particular, to the disastrous Green Deal, in order to return to a logic of trust; the strict monitoring of EU funding for the NGOs I mentioned earlier. These are the first instruments of my parliamentary struggle to improve the mental health of those who want to feed, not die.

Madam President. Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, would the European Commission consider sponsoring terrorist organisations? My question is waiting for an answer. Despite the opposition of the left and Renew groups to the organization of this debate, despite the blindness to Islamism, which has killed nearly 1,000 civilians in Europe over the past 50 years, despite the drift observed in the deployment of Erasmus programs: EUR 250 000 to the University of Gaziantep as part of this programme, while the Rector was making anti-Semitic and openly pro-Hamas speeches, an organisation recognised, it should be recalled, as terrorist by the European Union; nearly €2 million to Gaza University between 2014 and 2019, despite its proven ties to Hamas; more than 100,000 euros to the NGO Al Sharq Forum in the same framework, while it called for paying tribute to the Hamas leader killed in 2024. How can the European Union, which was built for peace, which was touched in its flesh, in Paris, Brussels or Madrid, be the banker of Islamists or terrorists? How can it fund organizations whose terror swarms into the editorial offices of our newspapers, concert halls and schoolyards? The Commission's guilty negligence casts disgrace on the great success of our Union, the Erasmus programme. Finally, how can we tolerate such failures in the protection of the European funds for which we must be the guarantors? Indeed, it is not abstract funds from a computer spreadsheet, but money from Europeans. It is the same money that our farmers are denied when they have misunderstood a regulation or incorrectly completed a form, the same money that we should spend to protect our borders and our people, the same money that should allow our youth to access housing or be better protected from the scourge of drugs. Together with my EPP colleagues, we expect an extremely clear mea culpa and immediate commitments. We don't want words, we want deeds. Stop the financing of crime, stop the financing of barbarism, stop the financing of terrorism! Commissioner, it is time to put Europe right.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, dear European farmers, we are taking the same and starting over. You got "From Farm to Fork" and you didn't want it? Well, it doesn't matter. The policy dialogue on the future of agriculture is here to take up the torch – and worse. Assumed reduction of livestock farming and social plan for European livestock farmers, increased greening of agriculture with unidentified budgetary objects, barely veiled questioning of aid per hectare intended to support production: Here is the program. Competitiveness in Europe is at the heart of this new mandate, but farmers do not seem to be entitled to it. Their only strategic course is that of the maintenance of landscapes and nature. Finally, a role of field guard 2.0 or landscape manager. One would almost forget the nobility of the act of producing, sacrificed on the unique altar of the sustainable management of ecosystems. Yet farmers have taken to the streets all over Europe to demand more consideration, to demand dignity for their profession, to demand real economic tools for their future. The progress mentioned is to be welcomed and welcomed, even if the equitable distribution in the value chain and access to innovation are unfortunately drowned in a general vision that still carries too much the decline of agriculture and increased dependence on imports. I will strongly oppose my EPP political family and the European Commission participating in a common agricultural policy based on this document. Otherwise, farmers who are already getting impatient will have every reason to go back to the streets.