27/01/2021 | 18:15:38 Thank you President, colleagues, First of all, I would like to thank our colleague Ms Alexandra LOUIS for the quality of her report. The resolution before us rightly emphasises the importance of NGOs, which are an essential component of an open and democratic civil society. Unfortunately, however, the space given to civil society has been shrinking in several Council of Europe member states, in contradiction with the Helsinki Declaration of 17 May 2019. This declaration specifically... 27/01/2021 | 16:39:53 Madam President, Ladies and gentlemen, Today, in this current affairs debate, we are debating the latest developments in the Navalny affair, which, let me put it this way, has been poisoning the political situation in Russia for many years now. Let me tell you frankly: the human rights violations in this case are such that an urgent debate would, in my view, have been preferable to this one. Then it was explained to us that what despite what we had decided in the Committee on Legal Affairs... 26/01/2021 | 19:06:00 Written question Ten years ago the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance came into force, following its adoption in 2006 by the United Nations General Assembly. This convention is now in force in 63 States across the world. In a resolution of 2012, the Parliamentary Assembly invited Council of Europe member States which had not yet done so to sign and ratify this convention. Unfortunately there is no overlooking the fact that, eight years on... 02/10/2019 | 12:41:51 Thank you, Madame President. Madame Secretary General, Congratulations on your election. You mentioned it briefly in your opening address: one of the important issues at the moment is still the question of the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights. Yesterday, as part of the very beautiful ceremonies held at the Strasbourg Opera House to commemorate the 70th anniversary of this great institution, some have discovered –but, above all, recalled– that if the... 27/06/2019 | 17:42:54 Thank you, Madam President, My dear colleagues, I would like to begin by paying tribute –in my own name and on behalf of many French people, according to the letters I receive, from various municipalities and French elected representatives– because we have a rule, in France, we do not give a street name, a place, to a person who is alive, and we wait some time to do so, generally five years to do so. I am witness to the many intentions of French and local elected representatives to pay... 26/06/2019 | 18:44:39 Thank you, Madam President. (FR) Rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, Malta is an island, a very beautiful island, an island at the heart of European history, at the heart of Europe itself. Because if we look at what we call the concentric circles of integration within the European Union, this country that has been independent since 1964, immediately in 1965 joined the Council of Europe, acceded to its convention. It is also a country that has been a full member of the European Union for more... 09/04/2019 | 17:23:54 I thank Ms Petra De SUTTER for her interesting report, the tone of which is commendably measured – perhaps too measured. It reminds me of the adverts in the1980s and 1990s for a disposable double-bladed razor: the first blade cuts a little and the second cuts even closer. I do not know whether that was scientifically proven, but it ran well in the press, although the process has to be renewed every day. Then there were three-bladed and four-bladed razors; I am really not sure whether the... 23/01/2019 | 16:30:58 This debate is rich and the report elaborated on by our colleagues is excellent and relevant. This is, however, just one phase of our reflection and we need to ask the proper question. We cannot confuse the freedom of the press and freedom of information with the quality of information. You cannot have quality information if you do not have freedom of information, but freedom of information does not really create quality. We see it today: there is so much information and we have deregulated... 22/01/2019 | 17:57:59 I sincerely congratulate Lord Donald ANDERSON on his report, which is remarkably accurate and informed. In 2011, the French Parliament dealt with the first case involving human rights that fell into my lap – the Bill Browder case, which related to a client of Sergei Magnitsky. People told me that we needed to produce a Magnitsky-type law in France. In 2012, such a law was passed in the United States. I did the rounds of colleagues in the French Parliament and Senate, and we met again in 2014... 22/01/2019 | 11:49:37 This discussion is particularly relevant for a Council of Europe country such as France as we are living through the gilets jaunes crisis, particularly because of the re-emerging demand that we should have a citizens’ initiative referendum – I will come back to that. We are talking about the Code of Good Practice on Referendums in the Council of Europe today because we are aware that our advanced democratic societies are going through a complete change in their ecosystems. There is a terrible...