Debate contributions by Marie TOUSSAINT

Madam President, Commissioner, you have a lot of responsibilities and, on our part, a lot of expectations, because it has been decades since the European Union has made commitments to social rights, objectives and, unfortunately, has not achieved them. This oral question is therefore intended to ask you how we will achieve them, but perhaps also to affirm our determination to work alongside you. The Union’s responsibility is indeed to deliver, to achieve the objectives that we have set ourselves. However, while employment rates are rising, poverty, lack of training and poor housing are also rising. We must therefore change our compass and equip ourselves with binding tools to fundamentally reorient EU policy. The European tool today is its European Semester. It focuses on productivity and growth rather than well-being or health. This is not inevitable. Yes, we can integrate the issue of housing and poor housing into European concerns. Yes, we can integrate the issue of inequalities and their extent into the European Semester. Yes, we can and must question the impact of all our policies on the most precarious and refrain from adopting legislation that would worsen their living conditions, which no public policy should be able to do. Today we need to enshrine a real principle – do no social harm – in European law: This is what I call a ‘social veto’.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we honour the memory of Mehdi Kessaci, a 20-year-old man who was cowardly murdered in the street by men who were, in reality, after his brother, Amine Kessaci, who was committed against drug trafficking. As you know, Amine is with us in this Chamber, and I believe he does not want me to talk about him, but rather about his brother. So let me tell you a few words. Mehdi was a happy young man, he was sensitive, he was gentle, he wanted to put his life at the service of others. After thinking about becoming a nurse, he finally decided to become a peacekeeper. He is dead and he will no longer be able to offer flowers to his mother, Ouassila, this woman so dignified in suffering, so beautiful in struggle – a warrior. Nothing will console her brother either, because, as Amine Kessaci says, "Mehdi died for nothing." So, Amine, you said you wouldn't shut up. You have chosen to continue to tell the reality of the living conditions of families hit by drug trafficking. You stand up to the "Narcocracy", which enslaves young people from the working classes all over Europe. You held on. You keep doing it and, I know, you'll keep doing it. I saw your mother asking you not to stop your fight. We urge you to keep your mouth shut: Well, no, you raise your voice even louder and invite us – basically force us – to do the same for all of us. In tribute to Mehdi, so that no more lives are lost, your strength and courage require us to continue to lead the fight with you. Then we too will be there, with you, today and tomorrow, and we tell the assassins that their bullets will not make us back down, because – I quote you, Amine – ‘you cannot kill an entire people’. We are here, we will be there, and I call on everyone in this Chamber to be dignified in the way we will approach the commitments of our Chamber in the coming months.

Mr President, November 2025: the climate is getting out of order, forests are burning, disasters are multiplying and hitting, as always, first and foremost the most vulnerable, and global climate action is a halt. But perhaps worse for us here in this Chamber, November 2025: another COP, and the European voice is extinguished, because of its procrastination, its hesitations, its national egoisms – like that of my country, France, for that matter – and its compromises, and the compromises of the right with the extreme right to destroy the European voice on the climate, the forest and the European voice at all. So I say this clearly to the alliance of the right wings sitting in this Chamber: When you give in to the wishes of the major foreign powers, destroying at their request the European model of social and environmental protection, offering at their request to Donald Trump and Qatar the annihilation of the climate bonds of oil companies, or Lula Mercosur without regard for the deforestation of the Amazon, you cannot claim to defend the climate, but you cannot claim to defend Europe either. They order, you obey, the climate suffers and Europe disappears. So either Europe becomes the engine again, the leader of the just transition, or Europe is indeed doomed to vassalage. For the climate, for our economy, for our sovereignty, it is time to straighten our heads.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you of the Rules of Procedure, Rule 40 on fundamental rights, because at the last plenary session we adopted a text that is essential for soil health, and therefore for human health. Yes, European soils are contaminated: by industry, but also by hazardous pesticides. This is the case for soils in Guadeloupe and Martinique, polluted with chlordecone, or Réunion, polluted by glyphosate, used for sugar cane, and so on... But during the trilogues, France quietly introduced a clause that excludes the outermost regions from mandatory monitoring of soil health. This is a colonial clause, and while Article 349 of the European Treaties allows the Union’s programmes and budgets to be adapted to these territories – welcome and welcome – there is nothing in the Treaties that would allow the rights of those who are full European citizens to be graduated or weakened. On the one hand, lives do not matter and on the other, lives do not matter. I therefore call on this Chamber to be vigilant in recognising and guaranteeing genuinely and fundamentally equal rights for European citizens.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there are events that forever hurt our memory, and this is the case of the unprecedented terrorist violence that shook France and left its mark on Europe ten years ago. I obviously remember that day as if it were yesterday, the anguished calls, the fear in the belly and the frightened eyes of the children, who offered long and their nights and days to the darkest nightmares. On this day of commemoration, our thoughts go first to the families and loved ones of the families of victims struck by barbarism. We owe them a tireless fight against jihadist fanaticism, against those who want to annihilate culture and joy, against those, all those, who want to divide us to better destroy us. On this day of commemoration, I also want to celebrate our spirit of resistance. We did not give anything up. Yes, we have chosen over and over again solidarity rather than division, dignity rather than fear and republic rather than hatred. Do not give in to fanaticism; not to crumble in the face of jihadist hatred, but to fight it with the strength of democracy; To stand firm in the face of hate preachers and refuse to look down in the face of those who want to stand against each other on all sides: This is what we will continue to do.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner. His name was François, he was only 23 years old and he was preparing to receive his diploma when, this Monday, this alternating in the building perished, crushed by a crane, caught in a tornado in the Paris region, a region not supposedly affected by extreme weather events. So, we could devote this minute to paying tribute to him and to saying our solidarity with his loved ones. I will use it to say that urgency is no longer an abstract concept, but today a brutal reality. Devastated territories, homes that disappear and lives forever destroyed. The science is clear. 2,000 scientists have just reminded us: Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by at least 90% by 2040 is imperative. But Europe is late. It has still not set its targets for either 2040 or 2035. And this delay is criminal. So I appeal in particular to Emmanuel Macron. Mr Macron, you are the main reason for the European blockade and sabotage, while our country is the parent house of the Paris Agreement. It is up to us to be exemplary. Don't kill the Paris Agreement, unblock the Union and let us save the climate.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no love, there is only evidence of love. And if I begin today with this rather well-known French poem, it is to ask the question, Madam President: What proof of love is this new weakening of the deforestation law that you have proposed to us today, despite all your promises. And here I want to remind you that, like love, trust must be expressed by deeds. But let us come to the work programme that you are proposing for next year. And you see, the first environmental tipping point was surpassed last week, scientists told us, with the widespread decline of corals, while poverty continues to condemn millions of Europeans. Our conviction, therefore, is, it will not surprise you, that this programme must take resolute action to protect what we hold most precious: life, justice, dignity. Not to deregulate with a new wave of omnibuses, but to accelerate ecological transformation in social justice. We are delighted to see a project to adapt to climate change and accelerate actions in favour of energy efficiency or renewables, or finally, a plan to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. These are measures that protect. But we must also give ourselves the financial means to achieve our objectives. And on this side, the bast hurts a little. You are announcing an omnibus on taxation, but will it aim to tax multinationals fairly? Will it aim to ask billionaires to contribute to ecological transformation in social justice? And we are also worried, worried about this 28th regime that you are announcing, which we have no guarantee will not again participate in deregulation. Worried because, if we welcome the anti-poverty strategy with great hope, how can we understand that it is not followed by any legislation? How can we understand that, in the equity category, there are three texts, but none that are binding? So we call on you to resist the sirens of the union of the right, who are not here today, who want to put down the model of social and environmental protection and to choose solidarity rather than fear, justice rather than resignation, Europe simply.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, this debate is being held on the occasion of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, which is still indispensable because billions of people around the world, hundreds of millions in Europe, are still suffering from hunger, lack of a decent roof over their heads, decent jobs or the humiliation and contempt associated with their condition. Yes, poverty is a political choice. Eradicate it, too. So we must change our compass, put the eradication of misery at the heart of all our actions. This requires, in the first place, putting the voices of the people concerned at the heart of public policy. Because it is those who experience poverty who know it best. Popular expertise must be at the heart of all public decisions. Secondly, I also want to tell you about the contempt of the poorest people. Because being poor is always being suspected of being responsible for your situation, guilty of your condition. The poorest are crushed under the weight of prejudices when, on the contrary, the burden of misery should be removed from their shoulders. The hand of institutions comes down smoothly on families in difficulty, for example. Too many children are still placed in Europe today because of resource constraints. We must put an end to this policy of institutionalized social violence, because that which tolerates contempt for the poor lets injustice cover the world. Thirdly, we must equip ourselves with binding tools to ensure that the fight against poverty truly becomes the backbone of the European Union. So let us endow ourselves with a right of social veto so that no more measures, no more policies are adopted if they aggravate the living conditions of the most precarious. Finally, I obviously want to talk to you about ecology, because some here, in these ranks, few in number today, come to fight nature and dare to claim to do so on behalf of the popular classes. So I want to make it clear to you: Your fight against ecology is a fight against the most vulnerable that leads to the worst environmental injustices, to the sacrifice of the health of Roma and relegated travelers, to the abandonment of working-class lives whose bodies are permanently polluted and contaminated, to the physical and mental exhaustion of the most precarious. Social justice and ecology are not two separate battles, they form one, only one, that of human dignity.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I am addressing the far-right group that has asked for this debate. You claim to be patriotic, you claim to want to save the European car industry. But all this is powder in the eyes. Your Green Deal cabal actually leads you to fight against the general European interest, not only against the climate, but also against our economy and our jobs. Over the past decade, China has expanded its grip across the entire value chain, from OEMs to the latest generation of batteries. European jobs, on the other hand, have been largely sacrificed, relocated with our know-how, without this having anything to do with the ‘all-electric’ goal in 2035. Evidence: 100 000 jobs were destroyed in France alone between 2010 and 2020. Did you hear the dates? This was before the adoption of the 2035 target. The reality is that the automotive industry you claim to defend today has suffered from its shareholders’ obsession with short-term profitability. We see exceptionally high rates of profit in this sector, despite the destruction of jobs and a counterproductive business strategy, the very one you advocate, which preferred high but short-term margins on polluting high-end vehicles, rather than investing in the lower but more sustainable margins of small, light and affordable commercial vehicles. Saving the car industry requires investment to make these vehicles even more affordable. This requires strict conditionality of public aid and a crucial European preference, not to mention making workers the engine of European car transformation.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we are here to talk about the European internal market and its contribution to our common prosperity. The state, like Mario Draghi, considered Europe to be a unique asset in a chaotic world, but on one condition sine qua non: the strength of our social and environmental model. But where have these crucial concerns gone? No, Europe does not need deregulation. It cannot survive if our common market is built by pulling down all our social, environmental or fiscal standards; whether it adds to fiscal austerity a ban on states going further in framing polluting companies or digital platforms; or, if it imposes the lowest social price through a 28e a system which would be there to diminish the social rights so dearly acquired in our Member States. On the contrary, we need to harmonise from above our laws on pesticides, taxation of the richest, renewable energy, and so on. Take the best in Europe to build the common. Our compass must be the affirmation that Europe’s strength lies in its ability to rely on people, their health and the living.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the right to healthy housing should be a fundamental right. It is unfortunately being flouted for millions of Europeans, for the million homeless in Europe, as well as for the tens of millions who suffer from poor housing or live in thermal fogs. It is a fact that Europe is subjected more and more often to increasingly hot heat waves and, in times of heatwaves, everyone is looking for a place to breathe, where to avoid heart disease, where to rest, where to preserve their lives. This summer, we deplore more than 1,000 premature deaths in Spain. Health, Commissioner - and I count on you to convey this message to your colleagues - must be the compass at the heart of European housing policy. It will be necessary to combat energy poverty by renovating housing, but without increasing rents, by equipping with shutters all those people who lack them, by prohibiting power cuts so that everyone can have access to a fan, by guaranteeing green spaces, especially for working-class neighbourhoods that are deprived of them – and, Mr Pelletier: environmentalists, do not live in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, I grew up myself in the city of Aubiers in Bordeaux – and finally by guaranteeing access to drinking water, particularly in Mayotte or Guadeloupe. Europe must act, failing which it is guilty of non-assistance to anyone...

Mr President, we must make the digital giants pay: Google, Amazon, TikTok, Meta and others. These companies plunder our data, spy on us, trample on nature and human and social rights, and then go into hiding in tax havens, sometimes even in the heart of Europe, Commissioner. While Europeans struggle to gather enough to live in dignity by the sweat of their foreheads, the "tech bros", Musk, Bezos or Zuckerberg, continue to earn billions, and this by paying almost no tax. Is that right? No, no. And that has to stop. We, the European Parliament, have repeatedly called for these digital giants to be taxed at international level, it is true, but already, yes, already at European level. And all without further delay. A 5% European tax on digital services is simple, it would be 37 billion a year from 2026. Can we seriously, reasonably afford to do without this precious money? But here appears Mr. Trump, their knight serving. And when Mr. Trump barks, the Commission fades away. Our question today is therefore more urgent than ever: Do you intend, Commissioner, to stand up to Donald Trump? Do you intend to defend European sovereignty against the United States? What do you propose concrete to stand up to the digital giants?

Madam President, Madam President von der Leyen, Europe is going badly and, forgive me for telling you, but you have a lot to do with it. You come today to meet the European Parliament, with a mouth full of promises, but your words ring hollow. The reality is that the liberalism you defend as the only possible path has led us, and subjected us, to Russian and now Chinese and American neo-imperialism. An hour and thirty minutes of speeches, Mrs von der Leyen, and only two minutes on the agreement you signed with Donald Trump and the disgraceful 750 billion you promised him for his climate-damaging energies. You gave in to a man who wants to vassalize Europe. But, then, what is your Europe for? Is it in your eyes only the recording chamber of the violence of the world? Yet no, we are not condemned, not condemned to see our social and environmental model explode in flight, not condemned to the extinction of Europe's singular voice in the world. It's time. It's late, but it's time. So turn your back on austerity that is exploding precariousness, shutting down businesses and hindering the ecological transition. Make climate and social justice your compass, and defend international law by, for example, supporting parliamentarians on humanitarian flotillas like Benedetta Scuderi and acting as forcefully in Gaza as in Ukraine, and then Europe will not be lost.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, here we are one year after the Draghi report, which was so warmly received at the time. But where are we today? Where are the investments promised to embark on the much-needed ecological transformation, including decarbonisation? Where are the billions of euros needed to preserve jobs in Europe and get rid of our multiple dependencies, for example in rare earths or critical metals? Because it is a fact that European companies are closing down. Nearby, in Hagondange, NovAsco employees, who dream of continuing to produce green steel, will see their jobs – 450 jobs – go up in smoke because Europe has failed to protect them. While on the silicon side, to name but a few, Ferroglobe is suspending its activities in Europe, making us even more dependent on China. Why? Lack of investment. Because, in addition to the austerity measures that the Stability Pact imposes on the Member States, the European Commission has done little or nothing to free up the public investment needed to bring private investment with them. This position of the European Parliament is therefore timely: recall the urgency, recall that European economies are extremely fragile in the face of climate change, as well as the urgent need for private investment, but also, and above all, public investment.

Madam President, Commissioner, Executive Vice-President, you are talking about a package to support chemical companies. But I will tell you, in reality, what you are presenting to us today is a poisoning permit issued to the worst of the chemical industry, to the detriment, of course, of consumers, workers, and our children. You call it an ‘industry plan’. Well, I call it a plan to multiply cancers. Are you bragging about simplifying the rules? In fact, you are opening the door to carcinogens in our toothpastes, removing vital labelling requirements and weakening the traceability of fertilisers that are already polluting our soils and waters. I'll go further. Because, you see, there are many ways to make war on women. There is an obvious way, by attacking our rights, for example on abortion. Then there is a more vicious way of releasing into everyday products substances so toxic that they cause death by causing breast cancer or fibroids. This applies, for example, to formaldehyde in shampoos, benzophenone in varnishes – with an additional racial burden, since these substances, the use of which you facilitate, are found in straightening products or in those used to whiten the skin. All this to please fifteen CEOs, met in small committee, while NGOs, scientists, trade unions and consumer representatives were asked to stay out. This package is nothing less than a set of texts dictated by chemical lobbies and ignoring civil society and science. So let us not simplify at the cost of more cancers, more pollution and more distrust of citizens. Save the Green Deal, save the Zero Pollution Action Plan and, above all, put in place the European Cancer Plan.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, finally, the European Union is determined to permanently and permanently separate itself from Russian gas. It was time! Together with environmentalists, we have been constantly alerting, alerting and alerting to the danger that this toxic dependence poses to peace and to citizens. But it took the outbreak of war for the majority of this European Parliament to finally open its eyes. To succeed in getting out of Russian gas, the extension of gas storage obligations was essential, both for our security of supply and to protect Europeans from the explosive prices manipulated both by dictators like Vladimir Putin and by the markets. The facts are as follows: A 90% fill, combined with a 25% drop in consumption, allowed us to spend two winters without giving in to Moscow's blackmail. But let us not be mistaken, Commissioner: Taking us out of Vladimir Putin's hands must not lead us to bind ourselves to Donald Trump's natural gas. The only real energy, geopolitical, climate and social security is the exit from fossil fuels that we continue to import from dubious regimes. What Europe needs is a real gas exit plan, based on lower demand, energy efficiency, sobriety and renewable energy.

Madam President, there is no sub-citizenship. That is why, in the outermost regions, in particular in the French overseas regions, every inhabitant should be able to enjoy the rights enjoyed by the rest of the citizens of the Union. That's not the case. There is a break in equality because the cost of living overseas is prohibitive. Europe must face this truth. In Martinique, prices for basic necessities are up to 40% higher than in France. This is the consequence of an economy of rent and monopolies, characterized by economic concentration in the hands of a few - often descendants of bekés - especially in distribution, in the automobile industry and in agriculture. How can we turn a blind eye to the responsibility of the Bernard Hayot Group, which owns more than 300 subsidiaries and represents 50% of the average shopping cart of a Martinican? That is why it is essential - and I thank my colleagues in this regard - that this report from the European Parliament calls on the European Commission to act by opening an investigation into abuses of a dominant position overseas. This is a first step towards respect and justice for those who, for years, have been fighting against dear life and profit.

Mr President, in April 1915, the Ottoman State arrested, deported and murdered. More than 1 million Armenians are exterminated. This genocide remains an unsuturable wound in the memory of the Armenian people and in European memory. What has been destroyed is not just scattered lives: an entire people wanted to be wiped out. We must keep the memory alive against the gravediggers of memory who still deny, a hundred and ten years after the crime, thus pursuing the genocidal low work. However, one cannot defend the memory of the dead and betray the living. Even today, Armenia is bleeding. Despite the peace agreement, Azerbaijan continues to blockade and bomb, as well as to take political prisoners. For example, 100 000 people have been taken from their land, Nagorno-Karabakh, and are still awaiting their right of return. Meanwhile, the European Union signed a gas agreement with Azerbaijan. She talks about peace while betraying herself for gas. She forgets that human rights are not negotiable. The Armenian people suffer from the repetition of history in other ways, in other words, but with the same impunity. So we have a responsibility: Not just remembering, but refusing compromises and acting.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, social plans are multiplying on our continent, putting millions of workers out of work. Bills are exploding. Millions of people fail to live with dignity from their work, to house themselves, to feed their children properly. Millions of citizens are now thrown into a poverty trap, from which they are less able to escape as public policies stigmatise and harass them. The hunt for the poor is actually being declared at a time when wealth has never been so shamefully concentrated. In this context, there is a well-established attack on an already fragile social Europe. Calls for simplification are turning into vast operations of deregulation and destruction of all European social and environmental protections for the sole benefit of multinationals, their shareholders and their dividends. The right and the far right oppose the ecological imperative and the social issue. More precisely, they remember the working classes only when it comes to using them to revoke, on their behalf, the fight for the climate. But what hypocrisy! It is not the poor, the forgotten, or the people you defend, but the profits of the shareholders. You do not defend those who have an empty stomach, but those who have their hands already full. So stop attacking ecology and recognise the need for new rights and protections for the world of work! We are now calling for justice for workers contaminated with asbestos, such as those at the port of Dunkirk, for farm workers exposed to chlordecone or other toxic pesticides, or for workers made sick by chemicals and other eternal pollutants – PFAS –, particularly those at the Solvay plant in Salindres. We cannot continue to blind ourselves to our economic model. So I want to say it here, today, forcefully: We must not stop, but continue to improve the social and environmental standards that govern us. The ecological transition is essential. We must therefore invest heavily to save our jobs, take care of our public services and infrastructure in the face of climate change and desertification in rural areas, and ensure the necessary transition. Moreover, only by ensuring that all our policies and budgets work to eradicate poverty and exclusion will we be able to ensure our social cohesion. We should therefore put in place a social veto right, which prohibits the adoption of a measure if it is detrimental to the 10% of us who are the poorest. Europe must guarantee workers European social protection, transition to employment insurance, including a genuine Just Transition Directive, so that no worker is without income, training or the ability to be the author of his or her own career path and reskilling. New European legislation is needed to put an end to precarious work – a scourge which, moreover, primarily affects women – and to prevent abuse by employers and part-time work – it is they who will benefit first and foremost from temporary agency work. So we must never go back to the Pay Transparency Directive, nor to the Minimum Wage Directive, which has already been transposed by many Member States, and which is an example of what Europe can do – well! – for social Europe. Moreover, it is imperative to save European due diligence and create a framework for the negotiation of collective agreements in all companies, starting with multinationals. Social Europe also means being vigilant about the situation of the most vulnerable. So I hope to see the issues of dignified housing, the unbearable treatment of Roma and travellers on our continent, the Child Guarantee and children in care, including for means, and people with disabilities, addressed in this debate that is just beginning. We want a Europe that defends the rights of everyone, starting with the most humble, and for this we will have to adopt an ambitious strategy to eradicate extreme poverty. So, ladies and gentlemen, good debate!

Thank you, Mr Oliveira, for this question. What has been observed in the years, perhaps even decades, that have passed is that this fiscal straitjacket that has been imposed on Member States has sometimes led to cuts in social policies, social justice and public services – this is the case with schools and hospitals, for example, which we absolutely need for our populations – in favour of liberalism that ended up destroying jobs as a result of relocations. The European peoples suffered from this inability of the States and the European Union to invest in their protection and security. Today, we are told that the Fiscal Stability Pact must be lifted in order to be able to produce weapons, but without recognising the massive needs for the green transition, which will be beneficial for all, nor for precariousness. This is a "double standard" that must absolutely be denounced. I therefore share your remark.

Mr President, what we are discussing today, the European Semester, is a crucial tool for coordinating the fiscal – and therefore economic and social – policies of the Member States. I regret the dogma of growth and austerity in which Europe remains locked, despite the capacity for dialogue in the examination of this report. Believing that we can keep the climate issue on the periphery is madness. Only within planetary boundaries can states deploy healthy and sustainable budgets. The laws of economics are not above the laws of nature. I would add that without social justice, European cohesion will not last long. Separating the budgetary issue from social rights makes no sense either. We must ensure that no more EU Member States’ budgets will worsen the living conditions of the most vulnerable. We face an immense contradiction: on the one hand, fiscal rules that impose a straitjacket on states, leading them to pursue austere policies with catastrophic consequences; on the other, a Commission that recognises the massive investment needs. By proposing to circumvent fiscal rules in favour of defence, the Commission is only demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the Fiscal Stability Pact. Let's be consistent and change the rules of the game.