Secretary-General of the United Nations,
Dear Heads of State
and Government.
It is a privilege to be speaking here before you today
and I know who I owe that to.
I owe it to all those who, a little over 70 years ago,
rose up against a barbaric regime
which seized my country, France.
I owe it to the Nations
who heard the cry of these resistance fighters
and who sent their children, from America,
Africa, Oceania and Asia,
to French shores to help.
They did not all know what France was,
but they knew that defeat of France
also meant defeat of the ideals they shared,
that they were proud of
and for which they were willing to die.
They knew that their freedom and values
depended on the freedom of other men and women
living thousands of kilometres from them.
I owe it to those who, after the war,
dared to reconcile
and rebuild a new international order.
To those who, like René Cassin,
understood that Human Rights
were essential to international legitimacy.
To those who judged the guilty, picked up the victims,
righted the wrongs,
to those who wanted to believe that the values
that the war violated
had to be restored:
values of tolerance, freedom, humanity
which were the founding of the United Nations.
Not because these values were good,
but because they were right
and allowed the worst scenarios to be avoided.
I am not saying this because
I merely want to talk to you about history,
but because when I hear
many of our colleagues talking
about the world today, they forget a little
this history that we come from
which now seems exotic or so far
from us, so far from our immediate interests
but maybe determines and will determine
our lives more than anything.
So, ladies and gentlemen,
while my country has a somewhat unique position
within the order of Nations, this gives it a debt,
to all those whose voices have been taken from them.
And I know that France's duty
is to speak for those that we do not hear.
Because to speak for them is also to speak for us,
today or tomorrow.
And today, it is these forgotten voices
that I wish to bring to you.
I listened to Bana, a citizen of Aleppo,
and it is her voice that I wish to bring here.
She has lived in the terror of bombings,
police and militias,
she has known refugee camps.
The Syrian people have suffered enough,
for the international community to
acknowledge its collective failure and question its methods.
To establish sustainable and fair peace,
we must urgently concentrate on
political settlement of the crisis, through transition,
as the Security Council unanimously decided
in resolution 2254 in 2015.
France and its partners have taken the initiative
and are supporting the United Nations'
efforts to finally bring about
an inclusive political roadmap in Syria.
This is why I hope that we can
launch a contact group with all
permanent Security Council members
and all stakeholders.
Today, the "Astana" format may be useful,
but it will not suffice. And these last few days
have highlighted the many difficulties.
We need the real means
to kick-start negotiations.
For the long-term solution will be political, not military.
It is in the interest of all, and,
first and foremost, of the Syrian people.
In this context, I have set out
our two red lines.
Firstly, absolute intransigence
on the use of chemical weapons.
Those responsible for the attack of 4 April
must be brought before international justice,
and it must never happen again.
Secondly, the absolute need
to allow access to healthcare for all,
allow medical structures,
and protect civilians.
France decided to make this a priority
of its presidency of the Security Council
next month.
Working for peace in Syria means acting
for the Syrian people but also protecting ourselves
from Islamist terrorism.
Because in Syria and Iraq, our biggest battle
is against terrorism.
We are fighting for all those who have died in attacks
over the last months.
Because jihadist terrorism
has hit our citizens on every continent,
regardless of their religion.
We must therefore all protect ourselves
by joining forces,
and our security becomes the first priority.
This is what France is trying to achieve
with its initiatives to tackle Internet use
by terrorists and
fight all their sources of finance.
This is why there will be a conference
in 2018 on this fight,
during which I will call upon you all to commit.
But this is also why France is taking
military action within the Coalition
in Syria and Iraq,
within the rule of international law.
This fight against terrorism is a military fight,
a diplomatic fight,
but also an educational, cultural and moral fight.
We are fighting through our work
in the Middle East, Africa and Asia,
and we should all unite behind it.
I listened to Usman, a schoolboy in Gao,
and it is his voice that I wish to bring here.
He is living his childhood in Mali,
in dread of blind attacks.
And yet his only dream is to go to school
without risking death.
In the Sahel, we are all now committed:
the United Nations, regional countries within MINUSMA
and the G5 Joint Force,
the European Union and its Member States,
and I pay tribute here to all these players
and underline that it is a particularly painful fight
which has a high human cost.
Our challenge today,
here too, is to eradicate terrorism,
and to achieve this,
build national capacities
so that States can handle their own security.
Regardless of the resources we use,
we cannot succeed in our shared mission
if the countries most concerned cannot
assume their own responsibilities.
This is why, since taking office,
I have supported the G5 Sahel joint force,
and am now calling for your collective mobilization.
This is also why I want to commit
to boosting support for African peace operations:
they hold the key to the future.
We must collectively rethink the relationship
between peacekeeping,
regional organizations and host countries.
And our ability to meet
populations' aspirations for peace depends on this.
Undoubtedly, a military response
can never be the only response,
and I would like today
to insist on the need for a political response.
I am thinking, of course, of the implementation
of the Algiers Agreement
and our development policy.
I also listened to Kouamé,
and it is his voice that I wish to bring here.
Forcefully displaced, he crossed Africa
before putting his fate into the hands
of traffickers in Libya.
He crossed the Mediterranean,
arrived safely
while many others perished at sea.
Refugees, displaced people,
and those we sadly call "migrants",
have in reality become a symbol of our times.
The symbol of a world where no barrier
can stop the walk of desperation,
if we do not transform routes of necessity
into routes of freedom.
These migrations are political, climatic, ethnic.
All routes of necessity.
Necessity today is to escape, from the persecutions
to which the Rohingya are victim.
Over 400,000 refugees, half of them children.
Military operations must stop,
humanitarian access must be guaranteed
and the rule of law restored
in the face of what is, we know, ethnic cleansing.
France will take the lead
at the Security Council on this subject.
Necessity is fleeing to save your family
when war is raging and
international humanitarian law
is no longer respected, but instrumentalized,
as in the strategy of violence used in Syria.
Exile, when the defenders of freedom
are the first targets of the powers in place.
Protecting refugees is a moral and political obligation
in which France is playing its part, supporting
the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees
wherever it must intervene.
And opening legal means for reinstallation
close to the conflict zones,
in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey,
and in Niger and Chad. And
defending the right to asylum and absolute respect
of the Geneva Convention.
On 28 August in Paris,
we convened the African and European countries
most directly concerned by migration flows
on the Central Mediterranean route.
We adopted a roadmap
with the priority of combating traffickers
who trade in human misery.
We must put an end to the unacceptable violations
of fundamental rights
by establishing a humanitarian infrastructure
with UNHCR and the IOM,
helping countries of origin and transit
to better control the flows.
But while in the face of terrorism, migration,
short-term responses are needed
to manage crises,
it is our political will to address the root causes
of these instabilities that today comes into play.
Migration, terrorism, are political challenges above all,
which are deeply rooted, for all of us.
Because these moral and
civilizational root causes
can be addressed
only with genuine development policy.
That is why I have decided France will fulfil its role,
setting a goal of earmarking 0.55% of national income
to official development assistance within five years.
(Applause)
Thank you for your applause,
but please let me put this into perspective.
First because I know some expect more
and that it is never enough.
And that France today
is not doing enough.
But especially because money itself
is not really the point.
It is the efficacy of this money.
It is what we decide to do with it.
It is about making better assessments,
being more responsible
with this money that all of us are contributing.
So, yes, I would like to see France
contribute sufficient amounts of official development assistance.
But I would above all
like to see in this assistance
more innovation,
more intelligence, different methods
used and more accountability on the ground.
That is what, with you, I want to see.
The challenge today
is for this official development assistance
to arrive on the ground simply,
efficiently, having been assessed,
and to the destination that was initially sought.
That is what we wanted to do, for example,
with the Alliance for the Sahel
that we launched with the European Union,
the World Bank and UNDP.
Next, it is important to have clear priorities,
the first being to invest in education
because it is with education
that we will win this fight against obscurantism,
into which countries, entire regions,
are plunging today,
in Africa and in the Middle East.
And here today, I call upon the international community
to do what needs to be done in Dakar in February
to replenish the
global partnership for education
at the Conference France will co-chair with Senegal.
It is a vital battle that we will fight there,
it is about
enabling young
girls and boys not to fall victim
to obscurantism, to be able
to choose
their future.
Not the future forced upon them by need,
or the one we choose for them here in this hall.
The second priority
is to invest in health,
in the fight to eradicate major pandemics
and malnutrition
because there is no hope
when people cannot be trained or treated.
In this fight for development
we also need to support the role of women,
culture and freedom of expression.
Wherever the role of women is being challenged, flouted,
development is obstructed,
which means the capacity of a society
to be empowered, to occupy its rightful place,
is being obstructed.
These are not trivial societal issues.
This is a deep civilizational fight.
It is our fight, they are our values
and they are not relative, they are eminently universal
on every continent, all over the world.
Everywhere that culture is flouted,
there again our collective ability
to overcome these challenges is reduced.
That is why UNESCO is today
a particularly vital institution
and in this regard has a key role to play:
to conserve a human face
in the world when so much obscurantism seeks to
eliminate its incredible diversity.
It is so that culture and the language of everyone
can live and flourish that we are fighting
to see progress of thought continue.
And freedom of expression is a combat
that is also extremely topical.
The United Nations is tasked with protecting freedom
of those who think, reflect, express themselves,
and particularly the freedom of the press.
That is why I am calling for the appointment
of a Special Representative
of the United Nations Secretary-General
for the Protection of Journalists in the World
because under no circumstances should counter-terrorism,
the toughening of our world,
justify the reduction of this freedom.
I would lastly like to speak on behalf of Jules,
my fellow French citizen in Saint Martin,
I am thinking of his destroyed house,
of his fear that it will all happen again and again
because climate change
multiplies disasters.
The future of the world is that of our planet,
which is taking its revenge on the folly of man,
nature is calling us back into line
and is summoning us to shoulder
our duty to humanity and solidarity.
Nature will not negotiate.
It is up to humanity to defend itself by protecting it.
Climate change is destroying
traditional opposition between global North and the South.
The most vulnerable are always the first victims
caught up in the whirlwind of injustices.
We are all affected by the
terrible runaway climate episodes
from China to the Caribbean
and from Russia to the Horn of Africa.
My country promised before this Assembly
a universal agreement in Paris,
which was achieved and was signed in this hall.
This agreement will not be renegotiated.
It is binding. It brings us together.
To unravel it would be to destroy a pact
that was made not only between States
but also between generations.
It can be improved with new contributions,
new support,
but there can be no backsliding.
I profoundly respect the decision of the United States.
(Applause)
(...)
I profoundly respect the decision of the United States,
and the door will always be open to it,
but we will continue with all governments,
local governments, cities, companies,
NGOs, citizens of the world,
to implement the Paris Agreement.
On our side, we have pioneers' strength,
the endurance, certainty and energy
of those who want to build a better world.
And yes, this better world
will create innovation, jobs,
whatever think those whose vision
of the future is based on looking back.
(Applause)
(...)
We will build it immediately,
by implementing our national contributions,
as France has done in adopting its climate plan
that places it on the road to carbon neutrality.
By convening in Paris on 12 December
all those who have decided to advance
on the basis of concrete solutions
by mobilizing public and private financing.
And I confirm here that France will do its part,
allocating €5 billion a year
to climate action from now until 2020.
We will increase our ambition
by presenting this afternoon
a global compact for the environment
aimed at forging
international law for the century to come
with the support of UN agencies.
When some would like to stop,
we must continue to move forward, to go further
because climate change is not stopping,
because climate disruptions are not stopping,
because our duty of solidarity and humanity
is not stopping.
Ladies and gentlemen, behind each of our decisions
there are voices and lives.
There is the invisible parade
of those whom we must defend,
because one day we were defended ourselves.
Why do we not hear these voices more,
these voices that call out?
Why are we no longer capable
of doing what, 70 years ago, restored all mankind's
ability to believe in itself,
global responsibility,
taste for mutual assistance and faith in progress?
And yes, when I talk of Bana, Usman,
Kouamé or Jules,
I am speaking of my, your, fellow citizens,
every single one of them,
for our interests and security are also theirs!
We are inextricably bound together
in a community of destinies,
for today and tomorrow.
So global balances have, of course,
profoundly changed in recent years.
The world has once again become multipolar,
meaning that we need to relearn
both the complexity and fruitfulness of dialogue.
Our collective action is confronted with the instability of States,
such as Libya,
6 years on now from armed intervention.
Before this assembly, I hereby recognize
France's particular responsibility
to ensure its stability is restored.
The meeting at La Celle-Saint-Cloud
on 25 July enabled progress
on the reconciliation essential
for the success of the political process
under the auspices of the United Nations.
Alongside the Secretary-General and his Special Representative,
we need to achieve, in 2018, elections
marking the beginning
of an effective restoration of the State,
and I will make every endeavour for that.
In Venezuela too,
collective action needs to uphold
respect for democracy
and respect for all political forces,
and cede no ground to the dictatorial tendencies
that are currently at work.
And in Ukraine,
we need to work tirelessly
to enforce commitments
and enable an effective ceasefire,
and gradually, as we are doing
with Germany in particular,
enable the parties present
to comply with international law
and bring an end to this conflict.
Multilateralism is struggling to address
the challenges of nuclear proliferation,
not managing to banish threats
that we thought were a thing of the past
and have erupted suddenly back into our present.
Pyongyang, for example, has breached, and assumed,
a major threshold in military escalation.
The threat concerns us all, immediately,
existentially and collectively.
To date, North Korea has shown
no sign of a will to negotiate. Its leaders
have locked themselves into determined one-upmanship.
It is our responsibility, along with our partners,
including China and Russia,
to firmly bring them back to the negotiating table
for a political settlement to the crisis.
France will refuse any escalation
and will close no door to dialogue,
so long as the conditions are there
for this dialogue to further peace.
That same objective is why
I am defending the nuclear agreement with Iran.
Our commitment to nuclear non-proliferation
enabled us to achieve a
solid, robust and verifiable agreement
on 14 July 2015, ensuring Iran
does not acquire nuclear weapons.
Terminating it today, without anything to replace it,
would be a grave mistake.
Not respecting it would be irresponsible.
Because it is a useful agreement
that is essential to peace,
at a time when the risk of an infernal spiral
cannot be ignored.
I said that yesterday to the United States and Iran.
For my part, I would like us to supplement this agreement
with work that will help control
Iran's ballistic activities,
with work that will help control the situation
after 2025 which is
not covered by the 2015 agreement.
We need to be more demanding,
but we should in no way unpick
what previous agreements have secured.
Look at the situation
we are in today.
Have we, through a lack of dialogue,
better curtailed the situation in North Korea?
Not for a single second.
Wherever there is dialogue and control,
multilateralism has powerful weapons
and is useful.
That is what I want for us all.
(Applause)
(...)
So, I don't know if my distant successor,
in 70 years,
will have the privilege of speaking before you.
Will multilateralism survive the period of doubts and dangers
that we are experiencing?
In truth, we need to remember
the state of the world, 70 years ago,
broken by war and stunned by genocides.
We need to rediscover today
the optimism, ambition and courage
that we raised against these reasons to doubt.
We need to rediscover faith in what unites us.
That means that we need to rediscover confidence
in these founding values of the UN,
which are universal and protect individuals
across the planet, guaranteeing their dignity.
But, ladies and gentlemen,
how did this happen?
Because we allowed the notion to take hold,
that multilateralism is, in a way,
a comfortable sport, a game for sitting diplomats,
that it is the instrument of the weak. That is
what has happened over so many years.
Because we let ourselves believe
we were more credible, stronger,
when we acted unilaterally.
That is false.
Because we let ourselves believe,
sometimes cynically,
that not everything could be achieved through multilateralism.
So we let global disruption
gain the upper hand.
We have dragged our feet on climate change
and on tackling today's inequalities
that dysfunctional capitalism has begun producing.
We have allowed discordant voices to speak out.
But it is always the loudest voice
that wins at that game.
In our complacency,
forgetting the lessons of our History,
we have allowed the idea to take hold
that we are stronger outside multilateralism.
But the challenge today, for our generation,
is to rebuild that multilateralism.
It is to explain that today, in the current state of the world,
there is nothing more effective than multilateralism.
Because all our challenges are global, such as
terrorism, migration, global warming,
regulation of the digital sector.
All these issues can only be addressed globally,
and multilaterally.
Each time we consent
to circumvent multilateralism, we hand
victory to the law of the strong over the weak.
Because yes, my friends,
if we are to enshrine our vision of the world,
we can only do that through multilateralism.
Because this vision is universal.
It is not regional.
Because every time we have given in to those
who say that the role of women
is a matter for the few, in a certain part of the world,
but not for others, or that equality between citizens
is a matter for one civilization,
but not another,
we have abandoned what has brought us here together
in this place: the universality of these values.
There too, in certain countries, we have
given in to the law of the strong over the weak.
Because every time the great powers,
sitting around the table at the Security Council,
have given in to the law of the strong
over the weak, to unilateralism, or denounced
agreements they had themselves signed,
they have not respected the cement of multilateralism
which is the rule of law.
That is what made us,
and builds peace over time.
(Applause)
(...)
So yes, today more than ever,
we need multilateralism.
Not because this is a comfortable word,
or because it is a sort of
refuge for smart people.
No, because multilateralism is the rule of law.
It is exchange between peoples,
the equality between us all.
It is what allows us to build peace
and address each of the challenges we face.
So yes, to do this, the United Nations
has total legitimacy to act
and preserve the world's balances.
That is why I want a more accountable,
effective and agile UN,
and I fully support the project of the Secretary-General
and his ambition and determination
to lead an organization
equal to the world's challenges.
We need to step out of our offices,
of meetings between States and governments,
to seek other energies
and to represent differently the world as it is,
taking a second look at the dogmas
in which we sometimes allow ourselves to be trapped.
We need a Security Council
capable of making effective decisions
and that is not locked up through the veto
when mass atrocities are committed.
We need a better representation
of all forces present on all continents.
We need coordination
in the management of crises, with the European Union,
the African Union, and sub-regional organizations
that are key players.
That is why France will be there, alongside the United Nations,
for the ongoing reform.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to say that the forgotten voices
that I have mentioned today resonate only
in a forum like this one:
a forum where everyone has their place,
where everyone can be heard,
even by those who do not want to listen.
For the latter, I have a message:
not listening to the voices of the oppressed, of victims,
means allowing their suffering to grow and prosper
until the day it strikes us all.
It means forgetting that we have all,
at a moment in our History, been the oppressed,
and that others have heard our voices.
It means forgetting that our security
is their security,
that their life commits ours
and that we have no chance of
coming out unscathed in a world in flames.
Not listening to those who appeal for our help
means believing we are protected by walls and borders.
But it is not our walls that protect us.
It is our will to act,
and to influence the course of History.
It is our refusal to accept that History be written without us,
while we believe we are safe.
What protects us, is our sovereignty
and the sovereign exercise of our strength
in support of progress.
That is the independence of Nations
in the context of our interdependence.
Not listening to these voices
means believing that their misery is not our own.
That we will forever possess the goods
that they can only dream of.
But when that good is the planet,
when it is peace,
justice, or freedom,
do you think we can enjoy it alone, and apart?
If we do not stand up for these common goods,
we will all be wiped out.
We are allowing fires to break out into which, tomorrow,
History will throw our own children.
So yes, today even more so than before,
our common goods are also our interests
and our security is their security too.
There cannot be, on the one hand,
the irenicism of those who believe in the rule of law
and multilateralism, and on the other,
the pragmatism of certain unilateralists.
That is false.
Our real effectiveness is at play in this conflict, here.
So, with you, I believe today
in a strong and responsible multilateralism.
That is the responsibility of our generation
if we are not to give in to fatalism.
We need only one form of courage,
ladies and gentlemen,
that of hearing these voices,
of not diverting from the trace
we need to leave in History,
and that, at all times,
of considering that we have to reconcile
our interests and values,
our security and the world's common goods.
Our generation has no choice,
for it has to speak for today and for tomorrow.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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