It’s wonderful that you are here. Know that you are seen across all of South America, and naturally in Venezuela. This is a sad moment, and we must look at all its harshness. At this hour, there is nothing but manifest aggression by the empire, meant to secure its domination over the Americas and over Europe. That is all.
There is no good empire and there are no good invasions—only evil. It is for this reason that no pretext can authorize a nation to invade its neighbor. Still less can a nation invade under the pretence of solving problems for the invaded. The problems and solutions belong to the people who are, in every country, alone sovereign.
Scarcely invaded... And Trump only did it because in the past few weeks the powers of this world continued in their characteristic servility and authorized the attack on ships of so-called drug runners, and then to bomb Caracas. And so servility produces nothing except an extension of the field of domination by the strongest. Behold the rule always applied and verified, for which we must say "stop" from the first minute. But who will say "stop" on this planet, when we accept a genocide, when we accept the invasion of Ukraine, when we accept all these things—who, if not we the people? For there is nothing else left! Alas!
Where has the President of the French Republic gone? Shouldn't he be the first to say that France does not accept that might makes right anywhere?
They kidnapped Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Why, after all that, his wife? And Trump has just announced that he intends to “fix” and “run”—I am translating literally the two words that he used—Venezuela until elections can be held. Since when is it the United States of America that holds elections in neighboring countries? Why don't they also hold them in Donbas to know what the people of Donbas want? In Gaza, to know if Gazans agree with the plan to build a marina?
A voice cries out “Resistance!”
There is no other possibility than resistance to this discourse, each of you must unmask it completely. You will see the great organs of propaganda: those who first explained the necessity and the justice of the war in Iraq, that utterly destroyed that country; those who explained the necessity of war here and there. And each time you see the same servile press, lying at the feet of their master, barking in time, proffering pretexts to downplay how odious this intervention is.
And how can we French do anything other than hang our heads when we have such a leader, when he accepted that that the United States would bar entry to a French European Commissionner[1]—chosen by the French—because he proposed rules to reign in Big Tech?[2] What is the US Ambassador and father-in-law of one of Trump’s children still doing in France?[3] Why is he here if we are forbidden there? This question must be raised. Have we ourselves become a dominated people? Can we say nothing, only bow our heads? This is where we are now.
He invaded and now benefits from the support of pretexts that everyone will go looking for, in order to manufacture a justification. And now see how he threatens, how Trump himself threatens Mexico. A country from which his country, the United States of America, already stole half its territory in the last century. He threatens Colombia, where he already has nine military bases. He threatens Brazil if it does not reverse the decisions of its courts. Look, this is what happens when we give an inch; when we do not say "No!" at the first attack, we are therefore obliged to suffer the next.
There cannot be but only one law, only one rule. There cannot be uneven scales, a convenient double standard. Borders must be inviolable. Peoples must not be martyred, no matter the pretext.
Ladies and gentlemen, as I close, may I remind you: there are one-hundred and twenty-six nations in the world that have a border conflict with their neighbor, and fifty-five of them are already at war. Peace is not only a moral principle or the hope of the many who refuse to see their children sacrificed by elites who in the end always wind around the same material interests, the same social stratum who always benefit from war. Peace is urgent, peace is a method for handling the international situation. There is no other, except for the fact that when you are invaded it is an absolute duty to take up arms in resistance against the invaders.
The crowd chants "Resistance!"
World peace: this means that we no longer accept to be led by those who submit and consider themselves intelligent, repeating to themselves the same phrases they no longer even understand and say, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” No, if you prepare for war you will have war, and that war will incite only more war, rancor, hatred, revenge. And so goes the world again from violence to violence, always subject to the might of the strongest: for it is always the strongest who wins.
Unless the peoples take up the cause, as we did in the war against the Nazis and their allies across the world. Look closely at this coalition, that from Milei to Trump and all the tyrants this world contains—how they smile at what has just happened.
Down with war! Down with empire! Long live freedom! Long live peace! Long live the peoples and their national sovereignty!
