The following video is an excerpt from President Emmanuel Macron’s much-ballyhooed “national debate” that he convened to try to defuse the anger expressed as the Yellow Vest movement.
Brigitte Barèges is the mayor of Montauban in southern France. In this clip Ms. Barèges, addressing President Macron, expresses her doubleplus ungood opinions about French immigration policy and the negative aspects of cultural enrichment in France.
Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
| 00:04 | You have the floor. —Madame Mayor of Albi | |
| 00:08 | is complaining, because I’m speaking before her. I’m sorry. | |
| 00:12 | Good day to all, Mr. President; good day, my dear colleagues; good day. | |
| 00:16 | We have talked a lot about the countryside. I’m a mayor of a town of 62,000 inhabitants, and — | |
| 00:20 | sorry, I’ll tell you a little about the problems of mid-sized towns, because you shouldn’t believe | |
| 00:23 | it’s all fantastic, either — in our boroughs. Concerning all that has been said, I’m trying to find | |
| 00:29 | in the Cahiers de Doléances [the books of grievances] of the Yellow Vests something that could be | |
| 00:33 | shared by the mayor of the Montauban. So much has been said about purchasing power; I would like to | |
| 00:36 | talk to you about social injustice. And above all I would like to thank you, Mr. President, | |
| 00:41 | for having decided not to hide from the debate on the subject of immigration. | |
| 00:45 | In 2012, March 15 2012, Montauban saw | |
| 00:49 | the first jihadi attack, committed by Mohammed Merah, | |
| 00:53 | who has — as you know— shot | |
| 00:57 | three soldiers from the 17th Regiment of Paratroopers of Montauban. | |
| 01:02 | One survivor is quadriplegic, lives in Les Invalides [war vet home]; eight days later it was | |
| 01:06 | the Jewish school in Toulouse. You know the facts, the whole of France was touched by it; | |
| 01:10 | it was the first of a long list. Those are subjects that I pay a lot of attention to, | |
| 01:14 | and I’m worried about them as well, since in the town of Montauban which is only 50km [30 mi] | |
| 01:18 | from Toulouse, we have counted, more or less, with the prefect — | |
| 01:22 | we don’t have a lot of information — at least 70 S-files [terrorist files]. | |
| 01:26 | Those are subjects that perhaps don’t exist in your reality, but which are worrisome. | |
| 01:30 | A year ago a tragic event shook the town. | |
| 01:35 | An 80-year-old grandmother was attacked | |
| 01:39 | at her home — and forgive me for sharing — was sodomized | |
| 01:43 | by an illegal Algerian [immigrant], one | |
| 01:47 | who was sentenced to be deported and has never been deported. | |
| 01:51 | Well, voilà, I knew it was a sensitive subject, but… | |
| 01:55 | I, I, Mr. President allowed us to touch on this subject, | |
| 02:00 | and I wish to be able to evoke it in all simplicity. | |
| 02:04 | And I read in the Cahiers de Doléances that mass immigration has to be ended. | |
| 02:08 | The people who are at the roundabouts feel deprecated, | |
| 02:12 | forgotten by the Republic. The people who are at the roundabouts, the Yellow Vests, | |
| 02:16 | and have texts, which I can give you, but I don’t want to make the debate longer; | |
| 02:20 | they are worried because they are treated worse than those who came from elsewhere. | |
| 02:24 | They express themselves with their three-colored flags at those roundabouts, | |
| 02:28 | they express themselves by singing the Marseillaise when they’re marching. | |
| 02:33 | They aren’t all vandals, rioters. I hosted them in my town hall. Those are poor people. | |
| 02:37 | Those are poor people, but who feel they are being treated badly, forgotten, for instance | |
| 02:41 | in the countryside, for example, when they send their children to school. | |
| 02:45 | In the schools, where their children are minority French-speakers. | |
| 02:49 | When — let’s for example talk about the “unaccompanied minors”, | |
| 02:53 | those minors who come from elsewhere, you know, well, | |
| 02:57 | we can see that for our own minors, who have problems and whom we should be able to place | |
| 03:02 | in foster families — in the child protection services cases — | |
| 03:06 | well, all that isn’t possible, because all those | |
| 03:10 | places, all those foster families, are clogged up | |
| 03:14 | by those unaccompanied minors. It’s a huge cost | |
| 03:18 | for the Republic, it’s two billion euros a year, and I think | |
| 03:23 | incidentally that departments are affected by that, because they were the ones in charge | |
| 03:27 | of that problem, and grants of | |
| 03:31 | €57,000 per child per year have been given, | |
| 03:35 | meaning almost €5,000 per month. All that, | |
| 03:39 | the Yellow Vests know it, too. It’s the same thing concerning housing. | |
| 03:43 | When the Yellow Vests cannot have access to a social apartment — | |
| 03:48 | and we are building a lot of them, because in the medium sized towns everywhere | |
| 03:52 | we know we have quotas to be met — and that unfortunately those social apartments | |
| 03:56 | are especially jammed up with prefectural reservations, | |
| 04:00 | and they are destined precisely for foreigners. | |
| 04:04 | I’m carrying on, I’m sorry. We will be able to talk about that, too. | |
| 04:08 | Dear colleagues, we listen to one another with respect. —I know this is a very sensitive subject. | |
| 04:13 | I will also talk about health care. The health care that | |
| 04:17 | when you cannot afford — you just said it, another rural mayor just said it — | |
| 04:21 | glasses, dentures, and when you see that from | |
| 04:25 | state medical aid, this year, in 2019, a billion euros | |
| 04:29 | will go to illegal foreigners, who will have all their care reimbursed 100%. | |
| 04:33 | Mr. President, this has to be heard, has to be heard! | |
| 04:37 | It’s a REAL worry concerning social justice! It’s a real worry, I know it’s bothering some people. | |
| 04:42 | And I’ll finish with pensions. It’s the same problem with pensions. | |
| 04:46 | When the Yellow Vests get on average a €400-€500 pension [per month] , | |
| 04:50 | whether artisan, farmer, whoever, | |
| 04:54 | a spouse, or someone who simply haven’t worked a lot — | |
| 04:58 | well, we see that the minimum old-age benefit which today we call ‘Aspa’ | |
| 05:02 | of about €800 and something per person [unintelligible], | |
| 05:06 | €1,200 Euro, I think, for a couple. | |
| 05:10 | 35% of those minimum old-age benefits are being given to people who aren’t | |
| 05:15 | even French nationals. All that causes, | |
| 05:19 | Mr. President, a huge injustice, a huge disarray | |
| 05:23 | among those forsaken, downgraded people | |
| 05:27 | of the Republic. And I would say that for the mayors — | |
| 05:31 | perhaps you aren’t at all confronted with those problems — we have… | |
| 05:35 | Madame, Madame, I listened to people who didn’t think like… | |
| 05:40 | like me, Madame. And I relay, I’ll give you the Cahiers de Doléances of the Yellow Vests. | |
| 05:44 | I will show them to you. I know it’s a complicated subject. It’s a difficult subject, | |
| 05:48 | which you don’t know in the countryside; well, good then, you do. | |
| 05:52 | So try to hear… The politically correct caused too much havoc | |
| 05:56 | in this country, Madame; I personally suffered because of it, but today I | |
| 06:01 | decided to not be silent. Because I am not here to talk about myself, I’m here to talk about | |
| 06:05 | the suffering, the suffering experienced by people who deserve, | |
| 06:09 | who deserve attention. There is no reason… THERE ARE NO NGOs FOR THE YELLOW VESTS. | |
| 06:13 | And they WOULD sometimes deserve it, because they are in a great distress. | |
| 06:17 | So, voilà, Mr. President, that’s what I wanted to tell you, and finish by suggesting some solutions. | |
| 06:22 | All that is costing us a lot of money, but we could — | |
| 06:26 | with a fixed budget — raise pensions if we reduced | |
| 06:30 | at least a part of state health care, diminished welfare fraud. | |
| 06:34 | We all know of frauds. I know the fraud of fake marriages, | |
| 06:38 | but there are others that we know in this area. I have a suggestion to make. | |
| 06:42 | Mr. President, I have been a representative for ten years, I have been an MP | |
| 06:46 | on a mission for the plans to relaunch in four areas, | |
| 06:51 | and I did it constantly without additional expenditures. — I think that the independent authorities | |
| 06:55 | are expensive… — I propose to be the candidate, Mr. President, | |
| 06:59 | to fight all sorts of social frauds which are multiplying, | |
| 07:03 | the feeling of injustice felt by many French people. Thank you. | |
| 07:07 | Thank you very much. |
Not very many mayors in the throng appeared happy to endorse the speaker. Who do they represent?
The globalists of course… absolutely not the people of France…
A good question.
Who do they represent?
Is the money flowing through their expenditures on projects etc., “Other Peoples Money” and they have no need to account for it?
Just what is the voting demographics, and formula in those other places?
I do like her style, and the points she made were sharp and succinct.
That video needs to go viral in France, and by pass the media.
What happened to FRENCH PRIDE in LA BELLE FRANCE????? How did it disappear in ONE GENERATION?
Thank you Ava and Vlad for your work.
There was a cool reception to the truths. People do not like to be confronted with the adverse consequences of their actions.
I’m sure some, if not most , of the French mayors receive some sort of benefit, a ‘kick-back’, for pushing through building permits, expenditures etc. for immigrant housing in their towns.