Last Saturday a summit of immigration-critical and EU-skeptical political leaders was held in the German city of Koblenz. Frauke Petry of the AfD (Germany), Matteo Salvini of the Lega Nord (Italy), Marine Le Pen of the Front National (France), and Geert Wilders of the PVV (Netherlands), among other prominent “populist” politicians, met to discuss the dismantling of the European Union.

Below is Marine Le Pen’s address in Koblenz. Although she spoke in French to an audience that was largely German, she was given a rousing reception.

Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

00:04 Oh, thank you!

00:16 Thank you!

00:20 Thank you! Thank you, my friends.

00:24 Thank you, and I would like to thank

00:28 warmly our friends and partners from AfD, who are hosting us today,

00:32 and especially Frauke Petry and Marcus Prezell

00:36 for their hospitality. Thank you both.

00:40 Thank you also

00:44 to all other representatives from different countries,

00:48 members of the group ENF [Europe of Nations and Freedom] in the European Parliament,

00:52 our friends: Dutch, Italian, Austrian, Flemish,

00:56 Romanian, British, Czech, Polish,

01:00 and British I think I already said, it’ll be twice, but I like

01:04 Janice [Atkinson] a lot; that’s the reason. Thanks also

01:08 to all the organizers who made this meeting possible

01:12 under the leadership of our General Secretary Ludovic de Danne.

01:20 I have already said this in France, but this

01:24 is being noticed everywhere in Europe. We are living through

01:28 the end of one world and the birth of another one.

01:36 Plenty of hope and new opportunities!

01:40 We are witnessing the comeback of the nation state,

01:44 Which globalism tried to make disappear.

01:49 For the last ten years, since the first referendums in France,

01:53 in the Netherlands, then in Ireland, we could feel the

01:57 approaching uprising of the peoples of Europe against an unelected power

02:01 That pretended to do without democracy.

02:13 But the first real punch to the ancien régime,

02:17 the trigger that would make all the dominos of Europe fall,

02:21 was Brexit. A sovereign people

02:25 decided to do without the permission of the powerful ones

02:29 in order to decide its own destiny by itself.

02:37 Then the second punch wasn’t long to follow:

02:41 the election of Mr. Trump as president of the United States

02:45 put the partisans of neoliberalism into even greater embarrassment!

02:57 His policy concerning Europe is loud and clear: we won’t support

03:01 a system of oppression against peoples. And on top of all,

03:05 he buried the Transatlantic Treaty. 2016 was

03:09 the year of the awakening of the Anglo-Saxon world,

03:13 and 2017, I am certain, will be the year of the awakening of the peoples of continental Europe!

03:25 It’s no longer

03:29 a question of possibility, it’s a question of time.

03:33 But our elites cannot see this world change. They refuse it.

03:37 And everything is being done in Europe, in every single one of our countries

03:42 to obstruct this evolution, which is nevertheless irreversible.

03:46 The European Union became a religion,

03:50 and they are its priests. They cannot think outside of it.

03:54 They are excommunicating every differing thought.

03:58 They forbid every criticism of their system. They are

04:02 the real dogmatists, they are the real anti-democrats.

04:14 I would like to remind you still

04:18 of this sentence from Mr Junker,

04:22 so revealing that it could be featured in history books:

04:26 “There cannot be a democratic choice against the European treaties.”

04:30 There you have the very definition

04:34 of tyranny!

04:38 The German people, the Italian people,

04:42 the Spanish people, all the peoples of Europe are subjected to a tyranny.

04:46 This tyranny occurs also through an information war.

04:50 It’s imperative to prevent the people at any price

04:54 from communicating among themselves! Hence the importance of our meeting.

04:58 Finally the peoples talk to each other!

05:10 In their logic, every people has to

05:14 be separated from others so they cannot become allies.

05:18 That’s why we are being lied to in France concerning Germany.

05:22 In Germany people are being lied to about the UK, and so on!

05:26 In Italy, in Austria, in Greece. Because if the peoples

05:31 were to discover that they aren’t that different from one another,

05:35 and that they all have a common interest, freedom,

05:39 then the European Union would be done for!

05:51 And that’s exactly

05:55 what is happening! In France

05:59 Mrs Merkel is being painted as a humanitarian hero,

06:03 who is a model of generosity

06:07 towards the migrants, while the French are all

06:11 less than nothing! Except that the French press never

06:15 ask the question about the opinion of German people. They never come to interview

06:19 Germans themselves, to find out if they are satisfied with

06:23 Mrs Merkel’s migration policies. And we understand why!

06:27 If they were to ask the Germans,

06:31 everybody would see that these migration policies are a disaster

06:35 in everyday life!

06:47 I salute the courage of the AfD, who dare

06:51 to defy German government on this subject! The European elites

06:55 definitely want to silence the peoples and make the world believe

06:59 that their current representatives are acting in their best interests. For my part,

07:03 I will never mix up the people with their leaders.

07:07 The German people are like everybody in Europe in aspiring to one thing only:

07:12 freedom!

07:20 Freedom and tranquility.

07:24 Being able to live in peace.

07:28 To decide for oneself one’s own future. Today

07:32 European leaders don’t take national interests into account,

07:36 but the interests of a financial oligarchy.

07:40 An oligarchy that uses institutions to defend choices

07:44 that are opposite to the wishes of we the people. It’s not the Germans

07:48 who want to welcome the migrants. It’s German big business,

07:52 which is, in addition, harming medium-sized and small businesses.

08:00 It’s not the French people who want to erase the borders of their country.

08:04 It’s French big business and their multinationals.

08:08 We need to see clearly the economic interests of the powerful,

08:12 who hide behind those beautiful words.

08:16 Because if we stop for one second to consider immigration,

08:20 we can say something that is valid in all European countries.

08:24 We have generously, even very generously

08:28 proven our solidarity in this area,

08:32 and it’s time, high time, that this stop!

08:44 Germany experienced a huge influx

08:48 of immigrants. And the chancellor

08:52 wanted to welcome them so much that she doesn’t even know

08:56 what happened to 500,000 of them. Incredible thoughtlessness!

09:09 In France they would like to make us believe that the phenomenon

09:13 of migrants is marginal. But who knows for sure the vanished migrants

09:17 haven’t already left for France?

09:21 How can we accept that towns and villages are being forced to welcome

09:25 dozens and hundreds of them, more or less everywhere in the country,

09:29 often without the consent of the population or even of the municipality?

09:33 How can we accept that this new influx adds

09:37 to the already massive

09:41 legal immigration; so massive that every year there have been

09:45 200,000 people entering French territory,

09:49 for ten years now? How are we supposed to accept this additional immigration?

09:53 When we know that for dozens of years illegal immigration

09:57 hasn’t been drying up? Immigration exacts a considerable price

10:01 that weighs on social budgets, and makes paychecks smaller,

10:05 and makes unemployment grow. It’s a source — it’s obvious! —

10:09 of insecurity. And we know very well that inside the

10:13 influx of the immigrants terrorists are hiding.

10:25 How long are we going to continue — in France,

10:29 in Germany and in all the other countries subjected to the madness of Schengen —

10:33 in this manner, and not protecting out borders?

10:37 There is, my dear friends in the European Union,

10:41 not only the immigration problem. There’s also the problem,

10:46 the huge problem, caused by the common currency. Which forces

10:50 every member of the Eurozone to have the same economic policies. I’m not saying that

10:58 everybody has to leave the Eurozone. It’s a sovereign choice.

11:02 It’s a sovereign choice to make, which has to be respected in every

11:06 nation. But it’s imperative that every country

11:10 may leave if that is their wish!

11:22 I have never thought that all European countries need the solutions I’m recommending for France.

11:26 I’m only saying that every country has to think

11:30 freely about its own interests and let its people

11:34 make the decision that seems to be the best. And if for some

11:38 countries it might seem advantageous to stay in the Eurozone,

11:42 for others it’s becoming more and more clear that it’s the opposite.

11:46 For France the single currency is a tool for the destruction

11:50 of the economy. Despite all the strategies put in place to save

11:54 the Euro, as the mandatory tool for all,

11:58 to mend it, as well as possible, so it might stay in place,

12:02 the deep diversity of European peoples and their particular economies comes back with a vengeance.

12:06 There is behind the word “people” a particular social fabric,

12:10 particular family traditions;

12:14 there’s a language, a history.

12:18 In sum: a people has a certain nature. A nature

12:22 that can be neither compressed nor interchanged.

12:35 So when we are told it’s one unique currency,

12:39 “a unique whole” — do they mean to say that

12:43 what is convenient for a German is also convenient for a Frenchman and a Spaniard?

12:47 But the German economy, the French economy,

12:51 the Spanish economy don’t operate in a void! They are

12:55 anchored in national realities, they breathe in the rhythm

12:59 of the peoples. Deny this diversity,

13:03 as the idea of a unique currency imposed on everybody is doing —

13:07 this means to brutalize Europe!

13:15 Concerning the people,

13:19 one doesn’t calculate an average by a simple

13:23 mathematical formula. There is no Franco-German average,

13:27 no more than a Franco-Spanish average.

13:31 I like Germany, because it is German.

13:35 I like France, because it is French.

13:47 I don’t like a chimera,

13:51 that would, like that legendary monster, have

13:55 a German body and a Greek tail, and three heads —

13:59 one French, another Spanish and the last one Italian!

14:08 The distinctions between the peoples

14:12 cannot be deleted by a stroke of a pen!

14:16 I used the example of the euro. I could have talked about fiscal affairs,

14:20 about social rights, retirement systems, or minimum wages.

14:24 They want to meld all the European nations into

14:28 the same economic mold, while crushing their distinctiveness.

14:32 If there must be reforms, they can only happen

14:36 at a national level, where there is a unique people. And over which

14:40 it is possible to act in a coherent way. Economic integration

14:44 followed by political integration is a dream

14:48 that is turning into a nightmare.

14:56 So we are seeing it in migration policies, but also simultaneously

15:00 in economic policies; there’s no more freedom when there’s no more sovereignty,

15:04 meaning the ability of deciding for ourselves about choices to make

15:08 for our country. Today they let representatives from one country vote

15:12 to create laws for another country on the other end

15:16 of the continent. But this makes no sense whatsoever!

15:20 I don’t want another country deciding what my country has to do!

15:24 And I don’t want mine to decide about the others, either!

15:32 For this reason

15:36 the goal of our parliamentary group above all

15:40 is to give the maximum of freedom back to every nation, and it has always worked

15:44 in this direction. Now we need to move on to the next stage,

15:48 a stage where we will no longer be content as a minority in the European parliament. The stage where

15:53 we will be the majority in the ballot boxes in every election!

16:04 2017

16:09 is a year rich in elections, first in France

16:13 but also in the Netherlands, and I wish the biggest success possible

16:17 to our friend Geert Wilders! Here also —

16:25 Here also, dear Frauke,

16:29 you will be leading the electoral battle. Your success since 2013

16:32 is already remarkable. I know that you’ll keep growing,

16:35 because you are the future of Germany!

16:49 This success could change the face of Europe.

16:53 if we come to power in every country in the EU, we could organize

16:57 in consultation with each other a reasonable discontinuation of the

17:01 old order, in which everybody will discover their best interests.

17:05 I want this transition to occur in the most tranquil way.

17:09 But if only one of us reaches his goal,

17:13 he will carry the hope of others. Let’s not contemplate this scenario!

17:17 We will get there, all of us!

17:29 Our organisation at the level of the European Parliament, our meeting today,

17:33 are the testimony of this solidarity that exists

17:37 among the movements close to, or very close to reaching power.

17:41 Often our adversaries warn us that we

17:45 are alone in case of victory. Well, it’s already starting

17:49 to be refuted at the ballot box, but more fundamentally,

17:53 the peoples share obvious interests, and everyone can see

17:57 that patriotic policies wouldn’t isolate their country, but on the contrary,

18:01 they would prompt a strong adherence by other peoples.

18:06 In a world where the United States is re-centering on itself,

18:10 in a world where 95% of countries have national borders,

18:14 in a world where we find protections, patriotism isn’t

18:18 a policy of the past; it is a policy of the future!

18:30 From then on,

18:34 from the moment when we abandon the prison of the European Union,

18:38 we will see the rebirth of the diversity of European cultures and the nations

18:42 that compose it. This diversity isn’t synonymous with war,

18:46 contrary to what years of ideology wanted to make us believe.

18:50 War, on the contrary, is this Union in lock-step.

18:54 War is those disconnected elites who are calling for

18:58 arming against Mr Trump or Mr Putin!

19:10 A different people isn’t an enemy people.

19:14 A different people is one with

19:18 with which I am going to build a relationship. With the European Union,

19:22 the relationship is not being built, it’s being endured.

19:26 The euro doesn’t unite us; it ties us down!

19:30 A project that opposes by force the peoples’ aspirations

19:34 is not a viable project.

19:42 I wish, I wish to see

19:46 the rebirth of the culture, the art, the literature of

19:50 every country on the continent. I wish to see the rebirth of their economies,

19:54 their inventiveness, their national genius!

19:58 Today the European Union is taking away our cultures.

20:02 It is a sterilizing power.

20:11 I am certain that the liberation

20:15 of the peoples will go hand in hand with a true Renaissance of Europe!

20:19 where we will see the languages — crushed nowadays — flourish,

20:31 English, English invaded all our universities,

20:35 and in Germany it’s the same. Our British friends didn’t do it,

20:39 those for whom English is a mother tongue.

20:43 It’s the cowardice of our own elites that allowed this surrender of

20:47 every culture.

20:55 I know that if we find the gearshift of our

20:59 sovereignty, we will find, by the same means, the taste

21:03 of our own culture. I await this moment with hope.

21:07 And I know in any case that the aspiration

21:11 of the peoples to freedom cannot be stopped any longer.