In
speaking to the General Assembly in France’s name
today, I am well aware that we all have a historic
responsibility in the current circumstances.
In the midst of a financial, economic and social
crisis that has no precedent in the history of the United
Nations, and faced with the threat a global ecological
disaster, we must now invent a new world where the
follies of yesterday are no longer possible. That is our
responsibility. Now we all know towards what
catastrophes our obstinate attempts to solve the
problems of the twenty-first century with twentieth-
century ideas and instruments may lead us. No one
among us can claim any longer that he did not know.
There is a universal awareness that the path that
the world has taken over the past few decades is a dead
end. This awareness is born of sorrow, suffering and
fear. We are politically and morally accountable for the
suffering on our planet. Tens of millions of men and
women have lost their jobs and their homes. A billion
human beings are suffering from hunger, and hundreds
of millions have no access to water, energy or minimal
health care.
To those hundreds of millions of people, we, the
heads of State and Government, and no one else, must
restore hope. Those who are paying the price of the
crisis had no role in bringing it about. We owe an
answer to the people who are outraged by the
behaviour of those in the financial world who led us to
the brink of chaos and continue to seek to enrich
themselves indecently. We owe an answer to those who
are still dying in absurd wars from another age, while
humankind has so many challenges to face.
France’s answer is unambiguous. Things cannot
go on as they were. We must change. We cannot allow
it to start all over again, leading to another disaster
tomorrow. After such a strong disavowal of our usual
thinking and our deep-rooted prejudices, the task
before us is precisely the same as that faced by men of
good will who sought here to build a new political,
economic and monetary world order after the Second
World War. The generation that preceded us was equal
to its responsibilities. The question today is: Will we be
equal to that same responsibility?
The world will change. It cannot be otherwise.
The only question is: Will the world change because
we are able to act with wisdom, intelligence and
courage, or because fresh crises will arise if we are not
wise enough to take the path of radical change?
The truth is that we have already waited too long
to regulate globalization, fight global warming and
curb nuclear proliferation. And I should like solemnly
to tell the leaders of Iranian that they would be making
a tragic mistake in relying on the passive response of
the international community in order to pursue their
military nuclear programme.
We have waited too long to re-establish peace in
the Middle East by giving the Palestinian people the
State to which they are entitled in the name of law and
in the name of justice. And we have waited too long to
guarantee the people of Israel the right to live in
security, which the tragedies of history have made so
necessary for them.
We know what we need to do now: increase the
number of permanent and non-permanent members of
the Security Council. I say in the name of France, it is
unacceptable that the African continent does not have a
single permanent member on the Security Council — it
is unacceptable because it is unjust. It is unacceptable
that the South American continent, with such a great
power as Brazil, or India with its population of one
billion, or Japan or Germany, should be excluded from
among the permanent members of the Council. It is
unacceptable, and I say here that the legitimacy of the
United Nations is riding on this reform. Either the
United Nations reforms and its legitimacy will grow, or
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the reform fails and then decisions will be taken
outside the United Nations.
We must reform the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank; that is indispensable. Voting
rights need to be more equitably distributed. The
missions of both the Fund and the Bank need to be
redefined. To maintain the Fund as the guardian of an
orthodoxy that has been so severely shaken by the
crisis would be a tragic mistake.
The international system has to be reformed. We
cannot have a politically multipolar world with a single
currency. That is not acceptable; it is not possible. We
have to re-engineer the financial capitalism system. If
we have a system in which the real price of risk or the
real price of rare resources is not being paid, that is a
suicidal system.
We need to eliminate tax havens, for we must not
tolerate places where money derived from speculation,
crime and fraud is stashed. It is up to us. No one in the
world would understand if we were to fail to live up to
this objective.
We need to curb the price swings of commodities
that are subject to excessive speculation, starting with
oil, since this instability is unsustainable. The countries
that have commodities must be paid a fair price for
their resources. We must not accept the speculation that
destabilizes the world over the costs of commodities.
In Copenhagen, we need to commit to
quantitative targets for greenhouse gas emissions. We
can no longer put off the moment of choice. We need to
set up a world environment organization. We need to
acknowledge the legitimacy of the principle of a
carbon tax border adjustment mechanism so that
nobody can profit from environmental dumping.
We cannot let the law of trade be the only law. I
believe in free trade, but there are fundamental
standards. We are members of the World Health
Organization. How can we impair the right to health of
those who have nothing? We are members of the
International Labour Organization, which has defined
the fundamental standards in this field. How can we
accept that those standards be flouted? The right to
health, the right to a minimum respect for one’s social
rights and the right to protection of the planet are just
as important as the right to trade. There is no single
right that is more important than the others.
We cannot ask developing countries and poor
countries to comply with these standards if we, the
rich, do not help them in their efforts. We all belong to
the same human race. We all live on the same planet.
We are all facing the same challenges.
So yes, we need to be able to share our
technology. France is ready to do so, and so are the
other wealthy countries of the world. Yes, we will need
to come up with further resources for development
assistance and for meeting the ecological challenge
together. I do not hesitate to say that we will find these
resources by taxing excessive gains from speculation
and profits. We do not have to look far for resources;
they are right there. I would like to appeal to all States,
to all international organizations, that the
recommendations made by the commission chaired by
Joseph Stiglitz be disseminated broadly. Let us make
no mistake about the way we measure economic
growth.
The task is a huge one, and it is only just
beginning. That is all the more reason for starting now
and starting quickly. We have little time remaining.
Each of us needs to realize what would happen if we
had to go home and explain to our fellow citizens that
we have been incapable of reaching an agreement, of
finding new solutions at a time when they are suffering
so grievously from the consequences of the crisis. I
wish to say very clearly that nothing would be worse
that a mediocre compromise in Pittsburgh and in
Copenhagen. World opinion and the current
circumstances demand that we find a real solution to
the problems and not just to pretend.
If we do nothing, the threat of the worst crisis is
not behind us but ahead of us. We are at one of those
moments in history when political decisions will have
a profound and lasting impact on the future. We have
no choice; we must take risks, since the greatest risk
today would be to do nothing, to let ourselves be
carried along by the force of habit, to think that we still
have time. France has come to tell you that we have no
more time.
I hope that this year, 2009, is when a new world
order — a more fair, more efficient world order — will
be established, one that each of us will be comfortable
with.