Speech at the Place de la Bastille during the demonstration in support of Ukraine, on March 5, 2022
You have lost, Mr Putin
You are unbeatable, Mr Putin, unbeatable in killing and lying.
You industriously killed in Grozny before you industriously killed in Aleppo. You kill every day in Ukraine, more and more, city after city, city center after city center.
You are a killer, Mr Putin, a serial killer with a soul as cold as your empty and icy eyes, but in you, the liar surpasses the killer.
In lying, Mr Putin, you are not only unbeatable. You are unequalled, no more yesterday than today, because who else but you would have dared to say that Ukraine could threaten Russia, that a genocide was underway there and that its leaders were “Nazis on drugs”?
Yes, in terms of crimes, you already rank among the best and for the misfortune of the Ukrainians, of Russia and for the misfortune of all of us, you will undoubtedly fare even better, but you have already lost, Mr. Putin, and will soon lose everything, not only this war but all of your supporters, all of your allies and finally all of your power, when everyone will have turned away from you, with horror, as if you were the new Nero.
Enough of the excuses, enough of the bad pretexts. NATO does not surround Russia, which is the largest country in the world and whose longest border is with China. You are just as much on our borders as we are on yours, but the difference, the immense and fundamental difference, is that no country of the European Union or of the Atlantic Alliance has ever annexed a square centimeter of Russian territory, while you occupy two regions of Ukraine, two regions of Georgia and an entire stretch of Moldavia.
Stop acting as the victim of aggression, Mr. Putin, when in fact you are the aggressor, because the air force that bombed Ukraine is yours, not that of the Atlantic Alliance; because the army that invaded this country after you swore so much that you would not do it is yours; because the one who brandished the nuclear threat is you and no one else, because apart from you, no one would be crazy enough to go to such extremes.
Priests, scientists, artists, teachers, writers, fathers and mothers, big companies and big fortunes too, your own people are turning away from you so much that you are forced to tighten your laws against freedom of expression even more, but, Mr Putin, you know the saying. It is Russian. “When the pressure is too high,” it says, “the lid of the samovar blows off by itself.
The pressure is growing, Mr. Putin, against you because you are increasingly alone, in Russia, in Europe, in the world, so alone that China itself is beginning to worry about your adventures, which are profoundly destabilizing.
Militarily speaking, perhaps you will end up winning, Mr Putin, because the weapons are in your favour, but politically speaking, remember what Talleyrand said about bayonets: “You can do anything with them, he said, except sit on them”.
You can become the butcher of Ukraine, but what will you do with this martyred country? How will you govern it and how will you overcome the resistance it will put up against you, with the help of the democracies? Because the democracies must defend democracy, and they do and will, I am sure.
You have lost, Mr Putin, lost by having believed too much in the decadence of the democracies now set against you, lost by having underestimated the heroism of Ukraine and lost by not having believed in the European Union which is emerging as a nation before our eyes, thanks to you.
I was there on Tuesday, in the chamber of the European Parliament in Brussels, when we gave President Zelenski a standing ovation, it was the birth of a nation, against you, Mr Putin, of a European nation that is finally arming itself and arming Ukraine, the birth of a great democracy of almost five hundred million inhabitants that is reaching out to the Russian people to build with them, after you have left, of course, a continent of peace and prosperity.
After your war, there will be peace, Mr Putin, and it is in Kiev that the heart of a new Europe will beat, to which your political failure is paving the way.
Long live Ukraine! Long live peace! Long live freedom, Mr Putin!
