22 September 2026 - Only the delivered speech is authoritative Speech by the President of the Republic at the 81st United Nations General Assembly.
Emmanuel MACRON Madam President, Madam Deputy Secretary-General, Majesties, Heads of State and Government, Ministers, Ambassadors and delegates, dear friends.
Since this morning, speeches have followed one another here describing the state of the world. And I fear I may lack originality in describing it. For each indeed describes the return of imperialism, of arrogance, the return to force without rules or restraint. A world, ultimately, of concentration of power where a few think they can undermine the international order in order to expand their borders, where others think they can trample on the sovereignty of peoples in order to dispose of it themselves, and where a few think they can decide the future of the planet, whether in terms of climate or artificial intelligence. In the end, the question put to us in very simple terms is whether we want to live in this state of nature, with a kind of return to the law of the jungle, or in a civilized international society. Our duty, more than ever, is to stand firm alongside the United Nations precisely to decide together on the common interest, that is to say, on the side of those who want freely to choose their destiny, their alliances, their development models, their future, on the side of those who refuse to have their sovereignty confiscated by unjust force or by fear, and on the side of hope. That is the very reason for our organization, this common house that brings together free, equal peoples, founded on the sovereign equality of each of its members. It is our Charter that prevents the power of some from enabling them to decide for others. Above all, it is what requires us together to demonstrate our commitment and our ability to act usefully.
You know France's attachment to the United Nations and its determination fully to assume the particular responsibilities entrusted to it by the Charter. I also want to tell you of my country's commitment to act with each of you to renew the conditions for multilateral action and to demonstrate that we are stronger, more effective, better able to face common challenges together. Those of today and those to come, which still elude us even as everything around us is changing; I mentioned climate and the environment, it is also true for war and peace, it is obviously true for technologies as for development. Ultimately, in each of these fields, where the law of the strongest seeks to impose itself, we must defend justice, the common interest, and we must do so in the very interest of each one of us, for it is our Charter that protects this possibility of living together.
So, faced with the course of the world and the fact that what we are living through today is an accumulation of wars that we are unable to resolve, multiplying crises and contemporary challenges that cast a new shadow over new generations, I believe that our duty is not to yield. In the end, the message I have come to convey today, as I have done for nine years, is one of determination, of optimism in action, but it is to tell you: let us not yield to the spirit of defeat, to fatalism, ultimately to what is in fashion, which would be to resign ourselves to saying that we come to this organization to make speeches but that it no longer serves much purpose; let us set up other organizations where the law of the strongest can prevail and perhaps another peace can be imposed. But let us not yield to that, even less today than yesterday. Let us not yield to it in five respects. Those are the five remarks I would like to make.
First, let us not yield to a kind of fatalism in the face of war and the suffering of peoples. We must recommit ourselves to finding concrete solutions and building peace. International law has never claimed to describe reality. It sets out the limits that sovereign powers have voluntarily imposed on themselves. So that force is not the only recourse in the event of disagreement, so that even in the face-off of war, the enemy remains a human being. Those are the lessons of the twentieth century. Those who wish to forget them today are committing both a moral fault and a political error. But the reality is there. In the Middle East, in Ukraine, in Africa, the industrialization of war crimes, violations of law and the destruction of civilian infrastructure is ushering in a new age of barbarity. None of us can wish to be the one who dismantles the protective framework of the Geneva Conventions, at a time when attacks are multiplying from Dnipro to Gaza, from Bukavu to El Fasher, with Jordan and the ICRC. France will therefore continue its efforts so that the global initiative in support of international humanitarian law, already joined by more than 116 States, leads us to renew our commitments together. We must remobilize to defend our humanitarians, to defend international humanitarian law in this period.
As many of us have often said, it is also because there can be no peace without justice that France continues to provide both political and operational support to international justice, investigation and evidence-gathering mechanisms, in particular fact-finding missions, and that we continue and will continue to support the International Court of Justice and its central role. We cannot accept the new order of impunity that some would like to build. This is also why, in the Security Council, France supports reforms that guarantee its effectiveness. In terms of format, of course, we must open it to new members, to new regions of the world, starting with Africa, but also in substance, the Security Council must be able to act in the face of massive violations of international law. Who can be satisfied with a procedural deadlock in the face of barbarity? The French-Mexican initiative on restraining the use of the veto in cases of mass atrocities is more necessary than ever, and I welcome the fact that 128 Member States now support it. The campaign must continue and must prevail, therefore securing the commitment of each of the permanent members of the Security Council.
But it is not enough to invoke the law and call upon our values in order to fulfil the obligations to which each of us consented by joining the United Nations. Our duty is action. France is ready for that, in coalition with all those who want to act in compliance with the principles of the Charter and who do not accept powerlessness. Thus, in Ukraine, the coalition of the willing that we have formed with the United Kingdom and Germany brings together all those who are ready to guarantee peace and stability at the heart of Europe, where two world wars began and from which no one can detach themselves. Many here know better than anyone what the return of war to Europe can mean. We will yield nothing on this. The coalition of the willing is carrying this fight. In the Middle East, we have set up an independent multinational coalition to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. This must not become an object of blackmail. It is a cardinal principle of international law, and it is in everyone’s interest that ships pass through the Strait safely and that the energy supply of our countries be ensured. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is a priority. Respect for international law there is a priority; it is in everyone’s interest, and France will commit itself to it.
In Africa, we bear a collective responsibility in the face of accumulating crises and the absence of responses. At the heart of conflicts, peace operations must be more effective and, for that, they must have adequate means and be part of better coordination between the United Nations and host States. I was already referring in 2018 to the role of regional organizations and the organization of better coordination between them and the United Nations. At the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, with more than 30 African heads of State, then at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, alongside the United Nations, we stated clearly that the African Union and regional organizations must be able to play their full role in matters of peace and security on the continent. In November, on the margins of the Paris Peace Forum, we will organize in Paris a replenishment meeting for the African Union Peace Fund, and I call on all potential contributors to make strong and concrete commitments there. We must not yield, therefore, in the face of wars; we must re-engage and seek to build solutions in compliance with the Charter.
The second principle is not to yield to the constant temptation of double standards, for that is what divides our planet and discredits the coherence of our international order and of our Charter. How many times have we heard that the sovereignty of peoples applied in Europe, but that when it came to looking at the Middle East or Africa, it could well be dispensed with? No, we must defend the same principles everywhere and do so in compliance with the Charter, that is to say, with the sovereignty of those same peoples, never by substituting ourselves for them. Every time a few States, sometimes in the very name of the international order, have sought to substitute themselves for the people in order to change this regime or that system, they have plunged those States into even greater chaos. No double standards: one life equals one life, peace and security are indivisible, and all are entitled to them. In Ukraine, for nearly five years, Russia has been waging a cruel war against civilians and occupying the territory of a sovereign country. France will continue to provide unwavering support for the legitimate aspirations of the Ukrainian people to peace, security and a future. At the same time, it will spare no effort to ensure that useful negotiations between Ukraine and Russia begin as soon as possible. We must defend the Ukrainians, and defend them more than ever before the approaching winter, defend them in energy matters, defend them so that they have more interceptors and can protect their civilian population. That is also why we support the initiative of a double moratorium: a moratorium on energy and civilian infrastructure on both sides, and a moratorium on the Black Sea that will make it possible to release grain and provide an answer to the crucial food security question for so many emerging and developing countries. This double moratorium is a necessity. Let us propose it and confront Russia with its own rhetoric.
In the Near and Middle East, too, it is again respect for the sovereignty of each that alone can bring peace and security to all, and that is what we defend. Respect for sovereignty for the displaced Lebanese whose villages are being destroyed one after another in the south. Only a fully sovereign Lebanon will be able to lead to Hezbollah laying down its arms and to restoring security for the Lebanese and all their neighbours. Sovereignty of Lebanon and of its people. Sovereignty for the Palestinians whose most basic rights are still being violated today. A year ago, here in this very hall, we were about a dozen States to recognize Palestine. I hear the cynicism of some: “paper recognition, look at the reality.” But what credibility do we have if we continue to remain inactive in the face of Gaza? Some boast of a supposed peace. But that peace has not reopened the humanitarian routes for a single second. Must we contemplate this spectacle that brings shame on us all? Never.
Look at what is happening in the West Bank, where every day violations are committed in the name of what? Hamas has never operated in the West Bank. It is every day building the impossibility of a project which is respect for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to exist. But at the same time, it is the very conditions of security today and tomorrow for Israel and its people. Security to which we are attached, existence to which we are attached. But all those who claim that Israel’s security depends on violating the sovereignty of all its neighbours are making a fatal mistake, weakening Israel’s security for today and for tomorrow, and threatening it.
Sovereignty also for Syria, whose revolution must not be disappointed. A few months ago, I was in Damascus to bring France’s support for the building of free Syria. And we must continue these efforts and, there too, enable Syria fully to restore its sovereignty and its unity. France is committed to each of these struggles. As we are committed with Italy, with the help of Jordan and a few others, and all the friends of Lebanon, to finding an effective follow-up to our half-century of engagement within UNIFIL, in the service of all the Lebanese and of the sovereignty of their country. No double standards, therefore. Sovereignty of peoples everywhere.
My third conviction is that we must not give in to the division of the world and to this rift that many describe, that some use, between the North and the South. We will not solve any of the planet’s challenges if we allow this division to take hold. It is taking hold, it feeds on double standards when they are practiced by some, but we need to reconcile the North and the South in order to meet the challenges, whether climate, health, or development. It is in this regard that, in recent years, we have multiplied initiatives in response to Covid, with the ACT-A and COVAX initiatives, in partnership with the World Health Organization and the African Union; when it comes to reviving economies, with the International Monetary Fund to reallocate Special Drawing Rights and make it possible to better finance African economies. And we kept our word by reallocating more than 100 billion dollars in Special Drawing Rights to help African countries. But we must constantly ensure that we preserve unity and do not set blocs against one another. That is why it is so important not to allow the global health architecture to fracture. We must continue to move forward on its reform, but never by weakening the World Health Organization, by making it possible to finalize the pandemic treaty and by supporting WHO and Africa CDC to fight Ebola even more effectively. We must also know how to reform our official development assistance lucidly and build much more effective solidarity-based investment. That is the meaning of what we did in 2023 with the Pact for Prosperity, People and the Planet. That is the meaning of the initiative taken in Nairobi a few months ago at the Africa Forward summit: to build a new consensus on solidarity-based investment.
At a time when so many countries are reducing their transfers and yet the needs of many countries of the South are increasing, we must move faster and more forcefully to help the IMF and the World Bank become more effective, to improve the effectiveness of their instruments, to better mobilize the private sector, to build guarantee mechanisms so that, in emerging countries, middle-income countries and developing countries, we can provide a more effective response. It is this new financial partnership that we need to build in order to avoid the rift between the North and the South. In the same way, this North-South partnership depends and will depend on our ability to reopen dialogues on our shared histories, our memories and our cultural relations. This is what France has sought to do in recent years through work of knowledge and recognition based on joint scientific work, by launching a legislative process that enabled us to begin the restitution of cultural property, to have there too, in a sense, a partnership of memory, culture and history with many countries of the South. And we are continuing, with Ghana in particular, but also with all partners who so wish, the work to respond to the needs for reparatory justice that have been expressed. It is a question of respect, and it is also on this respect that the coming together of the North and the South is built.
Beyond development and memory policies, new partnerships also imply having globalization, and world trade, that are more effective and fairer. This is what we sought to do at the G7 organized by France, by involving several countries of the South, by building through the summit of convergences a dialogue beyond the G7 with China, India, Brazil, the Republic of Korea, Kenya and others, in order to improve our collective organization, to avoid the accumulation by a few of critical minerals and rare earths, and to enable more effective cooperation in trade as in monetary matters. Fundamentally, as you understand, we have a responsibility not to allow this rift between two blocs to take hold.
The fourth principle is not to give in to fatalism on climate and biodiversity. We have done a great deal in recent years, since the Paris Agreement, eleven years ago, whose principles remain valid, whose agreements are to be defended and from which we must not depart. But, like you, I hear the doubt that is arising among some, the questioning of science among others, and so here too, let us yield nothing. If we want to meet the challenges of the planet, those of climate and biodiversity, we need multilateralism in action. This is what we sought to do through the One Planet Summit. This is also what we sought to do collectively, and succeeded in doing, if we look at the issue of the oceans. A few years ago, everyone was telling us that it was impossible to build agreements to protect our marine areas, our oceans. Look at what we did a few years ago: protect 30 per cent of our land area and our seas. We built that agreement, and each year we are improving its implementation.
And then, many told us that, in the end, we would never manage to preserve what represents more than two thirds of our oceans, the high seas, beyond our exclusive economic zones. We succeeded in bringing that negotiation to a conclusion by engaging, there too, the major powers. That was the BBNJ Agreement, and within a few months, we finalized the more than 60 ratifications, with the result that this agreement is now in force. The Nice summit, bringing nations together for UNOC 3 in June of last year, made it possible to accelerate this work, along with several other achievements, and the first COP on the oceans will be held in a few months’ time, in January. It is tremendous proof of our capacity to achieve concrete results when we mobilize and act together. And so, let us yield nothing to the fatalism of the moment. Let us defend our achievements, but let us also defend our principles. We must defend independent and free science. Let us protect the IPCC, IPBES, our scientists who alert us, who measure, who assess. Let us remain committed to the Paris Agreement, to our national trajectories, to our decarbonization and to the objective of carbon neutrality by 2050. Let us assume our responsibilities, accelerate cooperation and innovation, relaunch work on biodiversity credits and implement our objectives on the protection of forests and oceans. There is no inevitability, only decisions to be taken by us, today, we who are already the victims of climate disruption, and even more so for our children.
Lastly, let us yield nothing to the state of the world that is emerging on artificial intelligence, through which some would have us believe that only two powers, the United States and China, could decide, or more exactly that a few economic actors could decide everything: decide what innovations they want to pursue, decide, some, to pause, others not, decide whether the innovations they will make will undermine the national security of our States, may tomorrow make it possible to attack our hospitals or our banks, and also decide what the future of our societies will be. No, no. And this is not something we are just discovering. As early as 2018, within the G7, with our Canadian friends, we launched the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, anchoring that structure in the OECD to begin the discussion and the need for regulation. At the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence organized in Paris in 2025, followed by India in 2026, and which will be held in Switzerland next year, we argued for two very simple elements. That each region of the world should be able to equip itself with its own capacities, computing, LLM models, artificial intelligence ecosystems, and that we should be able to develop the possibility of auditing these models and not be dependent simply on a few private actors. Europe, moreover, was the first, with the AI Act, to establish its principles and in particular the capacity to audit these models. We must continue along this path.
And in this regard, I want to emphasize one point here. Our young people and our children. We waited too long to protect our children and our adolescents from social media. Everywhere in our societies, we are seeing the consequences. A decline in the capacity to learn, an epidemic of obesity among some, mental health disorders among others. The findings are there and the elements of correlation are well established. That is why several of us launched a major initiative to protect our children and our adolescents from access to social media before the age of 15 or 16, depending on the country. And Europe has now followed this step, having decided to launch regulation. And I want here to salute the pioneering character of the Australians, who were the first to legislate in this area. We are going to pursue this fight to the very end. But let us not wait for the same consequences when it comes to artificial intelligence. Starting now, we must protect our children and our adolescents in this regard. Look at the impact of chatbots on our children. That is why, with Kenya, Spain and Australia, we brought together the Coalition for Children’s Rights and Protection in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. As of this afternoon, we are mobilizing it. And the Paris Peace Forum will be the place where, on 10 and 11 November next, we want to bring together all governments, all organizations, all public and private actors, businesses and academics who want to accelerate this agenda for the protection of our children. And I look forward to seeing you on 10 and 11 November next in Paris in this regard.
Beyond that, we clearly see that the race for frontier models has begun. We must continue to invest, each of us in our own regions, in order to take part in it, and France is proud to have an actor that is in the frontier-model race, and we will continue to invest, to support Mistral AI so that we can hold our place and try to have such a model. But we must also build new forms of cooperation. And I very deeply hope that all sovereign States attached to their independence—European, Canadian, Brazilian, Indian, Indonesian, African, Gulf States, Singapore, and others besides—that coalition of independents that I have referred to several times, those, in the end, who do not want to become the vassals of one or the other of the two great world powers, will come together to develop an open-source frontier model, by pooling the computing capacity available to them, by pooling their investment capacity to build an open-source frontier artificial intelligence model that we would share. We must not depend on one or the other, and we must succeed precisely in advancing such an agenda through cooperation.
Lastly, there are areas in which we must clearly establish the new rules of the game. Artificial intelligence in outer space, in defence, in cybersecurity, as I mentioned, has profound consequences that affect our national security. We launched this dialogue at the G7 last June in Evian. Several have now mobilized, and we support the appeal launched by our Norwegian and Finnish friends, and we want to continue, within the framework of the G7, also in close connection with our British friends who will next year have responsibility for the G20, to build precisely an agenda for cooperation on artificial intelligence, to protect the most sensitive elements that affect our national security. Just as, in the past, we were able to agree to build a new international architecture when it came to chemical weapons or other risks, we must acknowledge that issues are now emerging, when it comes to outer space, defence and cybersecurity, over which we must regain control, which require specific cooperation and a specific framework among Member States, and we must build that cooperation and that framework. On that, we must yield nothing.
Those are the five principles of action—without claiming to be exhaustive in that regard, but I will stop there—in which France believes and that I wanted to defend before you today. And fundamentally, on these five points, my message is: yield nothing. Yield nothing to what is taking hold, which is, fundamentally, a slow division of the world, a spirit of defeatism that is setting in and that would leave some in the abuse of power: abuse of power by empires that threaten the sovereignty of one country or another, abuse of power by a few who concentrate capital capacity and who would have the right either to pollute or to aggregate computing capacity for everyone, abuse of power by a few who would want to concentrate wealth. Faced with abuses of power, we must recover what is the vitality of our Organization, that multilateralism which is the defence of a common interest, of justice for all, and which is, fundamentally, through unity, justice and cooperation, the only effectiveness, the one that makes it possible to restore a just and lasting peace in our countries, the one that makes it possible to restore unity between North and South, the one that makes it possible to rebuild an agenda for action on climate as well as on technology.
Let us yield nothing. More than ever, we need our United Nations. And at this time, when we are in the process of choosing our Secretary-General, I want here to pay tribute to the action of António Guterres throughout all these years; in this very harsh climate, he has never yielded anything. At this time, when we have to confront old crises and new challenges, we must indeed continue to act. Today more than ever. We must have the courage to be optimistic, to mobilize and to be useful, to yield nothing to the spirit of the age, for each and every one.
Long live the United Nations! Thank you.