the assembly will hear and address by his Excellency Emmanuel mcon president of the French rep Republic I request protocol to escort his Excellency and invite him to address the assembly president of the general assembly heads of state and government ministers ambassadors ladies and gentlemen I'm speaking here on behalf of a country who will never forget what of what nations are capable of doing when they are united freedom and France has just paid tribute indeed this year to the peoples of America Europe Africa Asia and oceanana who allowed us to liberate ourselves from the Nazi grip
progress and peace also France with its peoples have created a community of free states sovereign states able to engage with each other and to understand what is essential also hope much like we've seen in recent times during the paralympic and Olympic Games that France hosted this year with beauty enthusiasm and the support of peoples however despite this the Olympic truth that we wanted here did not come to life however the danger of words without action and impotent diplomacy are before us every day however our organization is facing the biggest convergence of Crisis possibly ever after
its eight Decades of existence and the feeling of a loss of control is growing when faced with Wars with climate change increasing inequality in Justice and every day Humanity seems to be more fragmented at a time when the circumstances would require us to find common responses strong effective responses to these two words United Nations need to embody hope once again and what must we do for this we need to find this essential Bedrock of this and that's what I wanted to touch on briefly above all first and foremost we need to restore the terms of
trust and respect between peoples and here I can see them often trampled in our debates to do this we need to show pay equal attention to those who are suffering as I mentioned here two years ago in fact let's Stave off the possibility of having a double standards one life is equal to another the civilian protection is an imperative Norman must remain our North Star at a time when this year we are marking the 75th anniversary of the Geneva conventions and let's not let the idea take root for a moment that the those who died
in Ukraine are from the north that those who have died in Gaza from the south and those who die in the conflicts in Sudan in the Great Lakes region or in Myanmar would be those who've consequences who are alone and ignored let's regain control and restore this confidence and Trust which means that we should find look for peace everywhere and not accept any differences at a time or in difference at a time when human lives are at stake let's not accept any difference when difference being made when territorial integrity and the sovereignty of states is
at stake either these conflicts today call into question our very capacity to ensure that our un Charter is respected and when I see some people want to propose Peace by asking for capitulation it's surprising we can't even how can we we could support any idea like this I would like to reiterate here how the protection of civilians of all humanitarian workers of all of those who are working to defend our common values is crucial in each and every one of these conflicts next we must provide a common response to the great challenges the two Wars
that are affecting Europe and the Middle East Russia indeed is waging a war in Ukraine for territorial Conquest scorning the most fundamental principles of international life it is they are guilty of legal of of violating the law ethics and honor nothing that they're doing is in line with the common interest of Nations the specific responsibilities that they shoulder within this organization the fate of Ukraine is a question of peace and Security in Europe and around the world because who could still believe that they are protected from their bigger neighbors the violent neighbors those Avid ones
if we Le let Russia win this as as if nothing happened no one could do that it is therefore in our common interest and the common interest of Na that Ukraine be restored in its legitimate rights as soon as possible and that just and Lasting peace be built France will continue to do everything in its power so that Ukraine can hold strong be out of danger and obtain Justice France will continue to provide it with the equipment that is necessary for its defense and with its allies and partners that are closest to them France will
support the remarkable resistance of the Ukrainian people and will commit for their to their lasting security let us look for peace France will join its forces with all of those sincere Partners to build solid peace in Ukraine for PE for Ukraine and for Europe I know that for many of us the key issues are elsewhere there's a long list of Forgotten Wars unjust victories badly negotiated resolutions or perhaps resolutions that are never implemented I am not forgetting any of them even if I can't list them all here president chedi who spoke earlier at this Tribune
said that the situation in the great lanes and I will go back to him and president kagam in a few days I will cover that that is of concern to us as well and in arm Armenia prime minister which France France stands strongly shoulder-to-shoulder with the pressure from aeran and territorial intentions the International Community must be there so that peace negotiations are successful and for so that the B internationally recognized borders are [Music] preserved but I know that for a lot of the people here the essential issue Beyond these wars is together and it's also
for us together in here in Gaza where the fate of the Palestinian people is currently present and heavy over all of our debates on this topic on such a topic complex topic I'd like to say clearly the France's position from day one we condemn strongly the terrorist attack which was terrible and unprecedented carried out by Hamas against Israel on the 7th of October terrorism is unacceptable whatever the causes may be and here we mourn the victims of the hamas's attack on the 7th of October this include they include 48 French citizens I express my compassion
friendship and to all of those families who have lost children parents friends on the 7th of October we ask also once again and solemnly for the hostages to be released they amongst them there are also several French compatriots too and here I wish to commend the efforts of the United States of America Egypt and Qatar to achieve this this remains a priority for us all Israel when faced with this terrorist attack has a legitimate right to predict their own people and to deny himass the means of attacking them again and no one here could have
suffered something like the SE of octob without there being consequences however the war that Israel is waging in Gaza has gone on too long the tens of mil thousands of Civilian victims in Palestine cannot be justified there is no explanation possible for this there are too many innocent people have died and we mourn them too and those people who have died are a outrage for Humanity and a dangerous source of hatred resentment which threatens and will threaten everyone's security including that of Israel tomorrow so this war needs to stop and it ceasefire needs to happen
as soon as possible at the same time as the hostage are released and humanitarian assistance needs to arrive on mass in Gaza this is a position that we have held since October 2023 where we the resolutions with many of us let's hold the first humanitarian uh we we held a humanitarian conference for Gaza in November 2023 in Gaza it's now a question of political will given the destruction of the military capacity of Hamas and it is imperative that a new page is turned in our that in Gaza for the guns to be silent for humanitarian
workers to to return and for civilians to f fin be protected France will participate in any initiatives that will save lives and would allow for everyone's safety to be protected the deployment of an international Mission must open the way for the implementation of the two-state solution it is up to the security Council to take a position on this and also without further Ado the necessary Provisions need to be taken to preserve the link between Gaza and the West Bank to resp to restore Palestinian Authority in its functions and also to ensure the Reconstruction of the
territory and to once again make life possible quite simply France will do ensure everything can be done so that Palestinian people can finally have a state side by side with Israel the conditions for just en lasting peace are well known we just need to open the way for this and the path towards this must be as short as possible France therefore is accept is committed to the two-state solution and renew its action so finally it can benefit the people and meet their legitimate aspirations a Palestinian State should be created given all the necessary guarantee security
guarantees for Israel so should we should build the reciprocal recognition and common security guarantees for all in the region and we'll be working on this over the next weeks with Israel I and Palestinians with all our regional and international Partners as well and in the at this time at the moment the main risk is that of an escalation I expend my brotherly thoughts to Lebanon and the Lebanese people Hezbollah for too long has been running an untenable risk of dragging Lebanon into a war Israel cannot without consequence just expand its operations to Lebanon France demands
that all everyone respect their obligations along the Blue Line we will therefore act to ensure a diplomatic voice can be heard a voice that is indispensable to for sparing civilians and preventing a regional configration we must not we cannot have a war in Lebanon there cannot be a war in Lebanon this is why we urge Israel to cease this escalation in Lebanon and to we Hezbollah to Cease the missile launches to Israel we urge all of those who provide them with the means to do so to stop doing so we have asked for the security
Council to meet today indeed to this end and I welcome this this and the French minister at this end of the week will head to Lebanon themselves so it's the same Unity that we must show went faced with the great Regional challenges and the global challenges before us because beyond the conflicts that we seeing that I've just mentioned we need together to continue to ensure that sovereignty is respected everyone's sovereignty Regional and international Solutions need to be built to tackle these challenges and this is the idea behind the relationship we wish to have with Africa
a new partnership and that for is for what for the last two years we've been doing working to do France has done a lot over recent years for the African continent France has done a lot over the last few decades but more specifically in the Sahel where the French army have fought successfully against terrorism side by side with Regional International Partners however the military coupar in the region have L meant that we had to take the necessary conclusions but Europe and Africa have a shared destiny which demands a broad partnership a partnership for peace and
security which we need of which the terms need to be renewed more training more equipment more mutual respect also there's Partnerships that is underpinned by economic energy sport aspects as well as cultural memory aspects and that's what with Ben in Sagal Cameroon Algeria Morocco and many other countries this is what we have been patiently building over recent years and something we will continue to do so this is the same philosophy that for the last six years we've been embodying in order to build a partnership with the indopacific region where France has an ambition to contribute
to the respect for international law without which there'll be no prosperity in this region which has seen an over recent years much Development A lot of people try to trample on rules and imp ose their Wills by force France is proposing alternative not to replace anything but to give states in the region once again the possibility to choose their Partners on a project by project basis French territories in the indopacific have unique expertise in the fight against climate change protection of biodiversity the development of clean energy or the fight against crossborder threats and our vocation
is this in the region and it is to cooperate with all on the environment as you've understood this partner-based logic is one that seeks to build New Balances to re refuse that the world be fragmented where old rule books are are thrown aside we respect each other we build the paths towards peace and stability so beyond that the challenge that we have is of course affected by con the conflicts that I mentioned so we but we might not must not lose sight of our multilateral agenda because of all of this nor should we lose the
effectiveness that we've committed to and having gone through the pandemic which reminded us so blatantly of the importance of some of these common challenges we should not forget that this we need to C Bear all of this in mind and so I believe profoundly that effective multil multilateralism has never been as necessary as today it must give results it must give results for development fight against inequality Education Health Care climate bi diversity and Technology on each of these individual pillars we need unity and we need also to do everything we can to avoid a divide
between the North and the South and that's exactly the philosophy that we have developed in the Paris pact for people and planet that more than 60 states have already joined firstly we need to ensure that never we will push a state to choose between these objectives why would the nor states of the North teach lessons to the states of the South and try and explain to them that they should respect climate and therefore uh renounce on very o economic opportunities this is something people did we didn't do 20 30 years ago it would be unacceptable
therefore we need to build an agenda that allows at the same time progress to be made in the fight against inequality and for Social Development for education for climate and biodiversity and the global Health then Solutions need to be made and these Solutions need to be based on the proposals of the states themselves and this is what we've for example started to do with our Partnerships for a Just Energy transition not having one size fits all solution for all from capitals where we go to inspect countries and ask them to all follow exactly the same
recipe each country has their own path that is the key to sovereignty now then we we need a public financing a waging and also leveraging the private sector too and that meant that this is what allowed us three years ago to properly support the imf's special drawing rights and to OB obtain the re reallocation of more than 100 billion special drawing rights for the benefit of the countries who need that most in most urgently particularly in Africa this was a silent Revolution but it was crucial and this is why with this pact and we were
here we with with his members here on the effective authority of President mackel and with the support of the United Nations of the oecd and organizations concerned this is why we wish to pursue these reforms and carry out far-reaching reform of multilateral banks of our financial institutions we launched this objective for shared financing bringing together development Banks from across the world including those whose agendas aren't quite aligned we need to work on this common financing agenda so that we can meet the objectives that I mentioned and we together and I hope in the months to
come as soon as then we'll be able to carry out this reform of the World Bank and the IMF firstly to renew the members membership these institutions were built at a time when many of you weren't independent so the structure of capital needs to be restructured to to make it stronger the World Bank and the IMF were only conceived balanced calibrated at a time when the challenges were very different when the global economy wasn't as big where the population was completely different so we need to lift these absurd tabos of blockages caused sometimes by the
biggest countries which are prevent prevent others from receiving money because it could be they could be diluted we need to give the capacity to act to these institutions so that they can then fund that countries of the South need and this reform is of imperious necessity for our credibility as a whole and I'm saying to all of the richest countries and those who are around us on the table if you decide not to do that while you'll see in the next few years you'll see an alternative order emerge they will forget your agenda if you
decide not to do this and then we will be accused of cynicism and hegemony and perhaps not wrongly this reform of financial multilateralism is indispensable to address these challenges we also need to pursue our climate biodiversity agendas too the C we have upcoming cops very important all of them and F will play its part particularly through with Costa Rica convening for the United Nations an important meeting for oceans in nce in June 2025 here we'll have the UN oceans conference and we will continue uh work on this and I hope that a lot of you
here will be able to ratify what we've managed to achieve over recent years particularly the treaty on the protection of the high seas Mrs crucial and we also continue to make progress on the question of water that's also indispensable with the new one planet Summit on water this is alongside Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia I won't go into detail of course on all of the topics that are necessary but I do wish to recall that how pressing an issue art artificial intelligence is it's important for all states here to coordinate on this we need to Foster
innovation of course we need to ensure that the Innovation and artificial intelligence need to make sure it's accessible to All Peoples and countries of the planet and so it doesn't fuel more Division and inequality but we also need all of this to be developed in a e within an ethical Democratic framework created by the peoples of the planet that is Resolute we cannot let some people a few private actors who are on The Cutting Edge of this Innovation at the moment think about the future of this for our peoples this is why France in February
2025 will convene the next action Summit for artificial intelligence but I'm sure you've understood the aim is to build this common framework and I welcome the work that's been done and coordinated by the Secretary General and the global digital compact which is built using the best of expertise and it enshrines this Phil philosophy which we subscribe to totally to conclude ladies and gentlemen and I'm aware of course that I've forgotten so many difficult situations from Venezuela to the heart of Africa uh and so many other tensions in oceanana I want to talk about our institutions
I hear a lot of people say that what the unit what we need to do to the UN is just throw it in the bin it doesn't there's no point in it we can't resolve conflicts why do we have it so here let's have show a constructive kind of impatience and we can't just be satisfied with not being able to resolve things but we know the who's responsible while we have a security Council that has been blocked that is blocked reciprocally according to each another's interests while that's still the case W won't be able to
make progress is there a better system I don't think so so let's make the UN more efficient firstly perhaps making them more representative and that's why France as I reiterate here is in favor of the security Council being expanded Germany Japan India Brazil should be permanent members much like two uh countries that Africa will decide to represent them these new elected members will ALS also need to be accepted but the re reform of the composition of the Security Council is not sufficient alone to make it more effective and so I wish this reform also to
how it should also change the working methods to limit the right of veto in case of mass crimes and also to focus on operational effective decisions that peacekeeping needs and maintaining International Peace and security needs rather this is why we need to be brave and audacious to do so with the current permanent members this is something we should be doing almost 25 years after the Millennium Sumit it is now High time to be more effective to act better on the ground ground for States and for civil society and then beyond the United Nations we must
also Mark a new era in each of our multilateral institutions as I just mentioned these are the few words I wanted to share with you ladies and gentlemen today at a time a grave time of our of our world order here where so many conflicts seem unresolvable I will say that France will continue to carry this voice that is loyal to its values that is demanding that refuses to oversimplify the context and that France will continue to defend the simple values that we've principles that we've always defended human dignity the respect for the principles of
the charter and Beyond conflicts and the current news cycle we continue to build with you a fairer and more effective International order this is what we will continue to advocate for alongside our friends and our allies but also we should be free to say no sometimes we should sometimes be able to refuse the cynicism of the time or some things that seem obvious but are not thank you very much for your attention on behalf of the assembly I wish to thank the president of the French Republic we have heard the last speaker in the general
debate for this meeting
