Debate contributions by Catherine GRISET

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Hollywood does not need any help to establish itself in Europe. It is already crushing our screens, our rooms, our platforms. European cinema, on the other hand, is relegated to the background, both in cinemas and on streaming services. Only the cultural exception fiercely defended by France, too often isolated elsewhere, has allowed us to maintain our production. This policy requires platforms to distribute at least 30% of European works and to contribute to the financing of our creation. This is crucial when 85% of screen time is captured by three U.S. streaming services. These provisions are an indispensable safety net at a time when the US administration is threatening to tax our works 100%. This resolution also reaffirms the competence of the Member States in cultural matters and the principle of subsidiarity enshrined in the Treaties. This respect for our sovereignty is rare enough to be hailed. In the end, I am delighted that this text is inspired by the French cultural exception and I wish: that tomorrow we can increase this quota of European works from 30 % to 50 %, as requested by the National Film Centre. Because to defend our creators is to defend our identity and therefore our freedom.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are still being talked about gender equality. But let us be lucid, behind these words hides an ideology that wants to erase the differences between men and women and that makes motherhood a shameful, almost taboo subject. Equality, the real thing, is to allow each woman to fully live her choices, to be a mother, to have a career or to reconcile the two. It is to give her the means to reconcile work and family, not to make her believe that she must give up one to succeed in the other. Europe does not need lessons in wokism. It needs the protection of women, the support of mothers, the fight against insecurity and the commodification of the human body. Because equality is not quotas, it is respect for women in all their professional, maternal and personal dimensions. It is by enabling women to fully assume what they are that we will build a fairer society. Yes to equality, no to gender ideology. (The speaker refused to answer two blue card questions by Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle and Abir Al-Sahlani)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the Sorbonne, the centre of French culture, Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen organised a Europeanist staging: To make American activists look like martyrs of academic freedom. Let's be clear: These researchers are not persecuted, they are punished for turning universities into ideological hotbeds, where science gives way to propaganda. As they unroll the red carpet, what happens to research in Europe? It is drowned under funding for projects on gender, race or deconstruction. Erasmus+ even subsidizes Islamist universities. Horizon Europe has become a window for ideology. Hungary is excluded, not for scientific reasons, but because it dares to think otherwise. This is academic freedom according to Brussels: a political tool. As if that were not enough, France is now erased, even in its own language. For this communication operation, French was replaced by a bland and rootless "globish". Identities are erased, cultures are levelled and Europe is standardized with hollow slogans. It is more than a renunciation, it is an assumed cultural submission. This operation is not scientific: This is an ideological re-education plan and we will fight it.

I do not see how you understood that I was saying that women and men were not equal. Moreover, I am glad to see that the cordon sanitaire has been broken, since you are speaking to us. Congratulations! That’s good. I'm just saying you're mixing everything up. Yes, radical Islam is a danger for women. I have two daughters; I do not want them to be veiled in ten years. In fact, you're mixing everything up. We are the only ones standing up for women here with the National Rally, and I take advantage of this microphone to say that the condescension you have towards us makes you forget that we won the European elections. The RN is the largest delegation in this Parliament, in all countries. So a little respect, please.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, self-satisfaction reigns supreme in this Chamber. In FEMM, it is accompanied by a misandry feminism and hatred of men. These institutions, under the guise of equality, fall into hypocrisy. They attack men while supporting a radical Islam that inferiorizes women. Did they not fund a campaign promoting the veil as a symbol of enslavement for millions of women around the world? Isn’t the Femyso Brothers’ Organisation received here and expected at the next European Youth Event in June? This variable-geometry feminism makes European technocrats complicit in Islamo-Leftism, which in one hand subjugates women and in the other destroys gender relations, under the pretext of fighting an alleged patriarchy. So yes to a feminism that really defends women, like the Nemesis collective, which denounces these hypocrisies. Yes to real support for their career and family life, without ideology or guilt. Equality will not be built in compromise with those who advocate the subjugation of women.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, education and vocational training are national competences. Any attempt at European standardisation ignores the economic and cultural realities of each nation. In France, the devaluation of technical and manual training has led to a real disaster, while the massification of general education has left thousands of young people behind. There is an urgent need to re-establish apprenticeships and work-study schemes as pillars of a strong economy, in particular through tax incentives and administrative simplification, rather than through ideologically-based European funding. We must stop accommodating our labour needs through mass immigration. Training our youth must be a national priority and not an adjustment variable. Europe must defend the transmission of know-how, but also encourage training in future professions such as artificial intelligence. Finally, the European Union too often finances training imposing progressive dogmas, called inclusive, to the detriment of real skills and merit. States must preserve their freedom to organize their education systems according to their needs. In short, more know-how, less ideology, more freedom for nations, less European regulation.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the face of the demographic challenge, which threatens the future of Europe, it is our duty to propose ambitious solutions to tackle it on our own, with and for the peoples of Europe. Rather than giving in to the ease of mass immigration, which jeopardises our social cohesion and our nations, we must invest in a genuine birth policy that respects our identities. Today, too many women are forced to give up their desire to have children because of the difficulties in reconciling family and professional life. There is an urgent need to remove these barriers by facilitating access to housing, developing childcare infrastructure and providing tax incentives to families who choose to give life. The ageing of our population must not be inevitable. Europe must once again become a continent of the future, where starting a family is no longer a luxury, but a fully supported choice. This is how we will ensure the sustainability of our nations and the transmission of our civilisations.

Mr President, when the Commission talks about disinformation, it knows what it is talking about, which multiplies the control mechanisms of the media and social networks to impose its unique thinking. In Romania, the Constitutional Court recently invalidated elections on the grounds that citizens had been manipulated by videos on TikTok. Who can believe such nonsense? Yes, foreign interference in elections exists. But is the EU not the first to interfere in the elections, as we have seen in Moldova, Georgia and now Romania? The European Parliament itself organised training for left-wing and far-left influencers during the European elections. Elections in the EU are now being cancelled on suspicion of interference. These methods were believed to be reserved for totalitarian regimes. The instrumentalisation of the fight against disinformation could well become the tomb of Europeanists. Censorship of information is already an unacceptable red line, but attacking Europeans’ voting sovereignty goes beyond all limits.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, censorship on social media has intensified in recent months, affecting platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. The left, at the origin of 90% of these censorships, already controlled the conventional media through regulations, but also thanks to collusion capitalism. While we must of course remove illegal content to protect people, it is essential to protect freedom of expression. Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, censorship was systematically hitting right-wing voices. We've seen it again recently with Instagram's censorship of right-wing accounts and media. This standardization and "political correctness" weakens our society and our democracies. Ladies and gentlemen, a Europe without freedom of expression is a Europe of regression.