[FR] Intervention in front of the Socialist group of the European Parliament

I am still a little moved to be here, to see so many comrades and elected representatives. You know that one of the reasons for my short political career is that I do not like entering rooms to applause. But I could not refuse my friends who are fighting every day for Europe.

At first, I thought you were going to ask me how to revive European integration. As it happens, I don’t have a miracle cure and I don’t want to disappoint you. So I will offer you a few small white pebbles to help you on your way, in the hope that we can then engage in friendly dialogue. In this phase of the European crisis, is it more serious than previous crises? I don’t know. In any case, the situation is very worrying. I believe that the encouraging factor for us is the work of the European Parliament. We can discuss how other institutions or the system work, but in my opinion, the European Parliament is currently the driving force behind European life and proof of the indispensable, vital nature of representative democracy. This is in contrast to those who, seemingly oblivious to this democratic reality, have advocated that, as in the Greek Agora, hundreds of millions of us should debate the future of Europe at the same time and in the same place. To illustrate my point, I would like to refer to three of your texts.