Debate contributions by Marie TOUSSAINT

Mr President, 1.3 million people are homeless, 400 000 children live on the streets in the European Union, 29 million live in housing with mould and 24 million in highly polluted housing. Every year, 100,000 deaths in Europe are attributable to poor housing. We have been waiting too long for a real European housing policy. We now have the speeches, but they are not just speeches that we need, but actions and an ambitious, powerful policy that finally allows Europeans to live in dignity. I want to read you a few words from these Europeans: At home, everything falls into ruin, the chassis does not hold, there is moisture in all rooms. My daughter has bronchitis, my home is so unsanitary that I would rather live on the street than live there. My four-year-old daughter suffers the most. Never friends, because it's impossible. So we can no longer accept these terrible testimonies of people who live on one of the richest continents in the world. We can no longer accept the deaths of misery, such as that of Aïssé Touré in Garges-lès-Gonesse, who died at the age of thirteen from the misdeeds of a sleep merchant and the mismanagement of co-ownership. We can no longer accept the collapse of buildings, such as those on Rue d'Aubagne in Marseille, or all these lives shortened by pollution. Housing is too fundamental, too crucial and too central to the lives of our fellow citizens for us to wait any longer before taking action. A roof is a right.

Madam President, 'Carvalho', I ask you to remember that name, because in 2018, the Portuguese Armando Carvalho complained about the European Union's climate inaction, whose climate immobility fuelled the fires that ravaged his land in 2017. Carvalho is also the Portuguese name of this tree, oak, very resistant to fire and yet gradually replaced throughout Europe by conifers, certainly profitable but easily flammable. It's 2024 and Portugal is still burning. European climate action is in jeopardy, under attack from the right and everything remains to be done, I said it all, in terms of adaptation. Tonight, I would like to have a word for the overseas territories, at the forefront of the impacts of climate change. Guadeloupe and Martinique, for example, are facing rising waters and coastal erosion. No less than 8,000 homes are directly threatened, mostly without title of occupation because of a post-colonial situation, and therefore without any protection. Climate change is about solidarity. We urgently need a care policy and a policy of adaptation.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago Ursula von der Leyen announced to us the postponement by one year of the European law on deforestation, which we adopted here by a very large majority. You know, every minute, ten forest football fields disappear in the world. If we take the number of minutes in a year and the figure that the European Union is responsible for 16% of deforestation, it is, remember, 841,536 football fields that will disappear in the coming year. Isn't that nothing to you? As we learned this summer of the collapse of global carbon sinks, Brazil, Bolivia, Turkish Kurdistan and Portugal burned again. I want to say to the right of this House, which complains when I raise this question, and to the lobbies that that is enough! Your war on the Green Deal, your willingness to unravel everything and wage war on nature, will only accelerate climate chaos and harm the people of the world.

Mr President, whales are simply life. Their beauty is breathtaking. But beyond that, by their way of life, the carbon they generate, the biodiversity they maintain, whales are essential to marine life, but also to life on land. Defending whales means defending all of humanity. Yet this is the crime of which Paul Watson is accused, threatened from Denmark with extradition to a country that not only does not respect the most decent conditions of detention, but on top of that violates international law and behaves like a real environmental criminal. Because yes, it is Japan that has been condemned by the International Court of Justice for illegal whaling. And yes, it is Japan that perseveres and opens the hunt to an increasing number of species of whales for commercial purposes. But who has the power to protect whales, since these whales have rights? Who can speak to protect them and who has a duty to do so? It is the international community and therefore also the European Union, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States. This international community today is too silent. It is up to us to stand up and protect the rights of life and those who protect it. The European Union must live up to history, ladies and gentlemen, it must be on the side of whales rather than poachers, on the side of Paul Watson rather than Japan. So let's live up to our international commitments for life, climate, biodiversity and human rights. Let's protect our own rules against environmental crime, to protect whistleblowers or against abusive gag lawsuits. In short, let us demand loud and clear from the Danish government the non-extradition and immediate release of Paul Watson. Free Paul Watson!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to invite you to close your eyes, to imagine just a few seconds. Imagine yourself unable to raise your voice, sing, shout, or simply speak on the street, but also at home. Imagine being forbidden to move freely, to go to school or the park, to work or to the doctor. Imagine for a moment. This fate is that reserved for Afghan women, those women who are taken into the most absolute isolation, whom we want to silence and whom we want to erase. It has been three years since Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban and the situation of Afghan women has only worsened to the point of total annihilation. But Afghan women are resisting. They are a real spark of hope. They are not victims, but resistance fighters. That is the purpose of the invitation that my colleague Mounir Satouri and I extended to the Afghan women who were with us this week in this Chamber, and whose courage was praised by Roberta Metsola, to make their voices heard. Beyond ethnicities, partisan orientations, backgrounds, these women, diplomats, politicians, citizens unite to defend peace and justice in Afghanistan. One of them, Parwana Ibrahimkhail, was detained and tortured by the regime for opposing it. All these women have fled their country to continue to fight for the rights of all. We cannot bring ourselves to have their voices silencated. To let women be crushed in one place on earth is to deny the voice of all women and of all humanity. This is also the meaning of the words of one of these women who visited us, Tahmina Salik, who said to us yesterday: Standing in solidarity with Afghan women is not just a fight for them, but for all of humanity. So let's stand by them. Yes, we must reject the trivialization of the Taliban regime by the United Nations and the international community. Yes, we must recognize ongoing gender apartheid as a crime against humanity. And yes, we must welcome these women and sometimes also these men whose lives are in danger in Afghanistan, but sometimes also in neighboring countries, Pakistan and Iran. It is only at this level that Europe will be worthy of its values.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the solar panel companies Systovi in France and Meyer Burger in Germany and electric car companies like Audi in Forest in Belgium are closing down these European companies. Thousands upon thousands of workers are put out of work while precariousness explodes. Europe is losing its sovereignty in areas as diverse and as crucial as the objects of the transition or our indispensable medicines. For years, we were told that fiscal orthodoxy coupled with free trade would save our economies. But it was the investments that saved us during the health crisis. These are the investments that saved us during Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine. And it will be the investments that will save Europe from its demise tomorrow. So yes, we need massive investments for decarbonization and biodiversity, for health and housing, for industry and agriculture, and for the depollution of the world. But how do you want to ensure European competitiveness without protecting our economy? How do you want to protect our jobs and respect the natural rhythm of the planet by undermining all the rules that aim to protect them, under the false pretext of simplification? European naivety is guilty. It is the announcement of an industrial, ecological and social disaster to come if we do not implement green protectionism.