President Lula's pronouncement during launch of ‘’Tonelero’’ submarine into the sea

First, I'd like to apologize to our guests, as I'm not going to read out the entire name list, because everyone has already spoken on behalf of everyone who is here. It would be repetitive and, as we're going to have elections this year in Brasil, it's dangerous, from this point, for someone to gain a vote if I mention their name - or to lose a vote.

So I'd first like to compliment my dear partner Janja, who should have brought us some champagne to drink, but Olsen [Marcos Sampaio Olsen, Navy commander] made us throw away the bottle with the glass and everything.

I want to greet comrade Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic. I want to greet the governor of Rio de Janeiro and I want to greet our dear Olsen, commander of the Navy and, on his behalf, I want to greet all the people from the Navy who are here. And I want to greet former minister Karam, because it's not just that he was a former minister, it's that tomorrow he will have reached the age of 100. I told him that he looks like he's going to live to 120, which is the age I've asked God to allow me to live to - just 40 more years is what I'm asking for to stay here on planet Earth, then I'll go somewhere else.

I'd like to start by saying that today is a bit of a historic day for Brazil, for France, because it's true, as the poets say, that a journey, however long, always begins with the first step. The Chinese wall, someone had to have the courage to build it, to place the first brick. And what is happening today is the result of a journey that will mark 200 years of diplomatic relations between Brazil and France next year. That's no small thing. What's more, the French Revolution has inspired many Brazilians throughout the history of Brazil and France.

And today is a memorable day, because I had insisted that President Macron came to Brazil. I had urged President Macron to come and see this shipyard here, because he said it was one of the most modern in the world, but I told him: if he came here, he wouldn't see the most modern shipyard, one of the most modern, he would see the most sophisticated shipyard of this century, built here in Brazil, to build, together with France, our first nuclear propulsion submarine.

I hope that President Macron will carry from Brazil not only the image of our shipyard, the image of our ship, which is about to enter the water, but the image of the affection of the Brazilian people, which he saw yesterday in the Amazon and which he is seeing today in Rio de Janeiro.

Yesterday we left the heart of the Green Amazon, in Belém, to deal with another Amazon, the Blue Amazon. From the Itaguaí shipyard, we glimpsed the vastness of Brazil's 5.7 million square kilometers of maritime space.

95% of Brazil's foreign trade passes through the South Atlantic, where there are untapped natural resources and rich biodiversity.

From the Blue Amazon we get 85% of the petroleum, 75% of the natural gas and 45% of the fish produced in the country.

Protecting this natural heritage and maintaining the South Atlantic as a Zone of Peace and Cooperation are central to Brazilian foreign policy. Over the last 150 years, these national objectives have become a reality with French support.

Several of the Brazilian Navy's ships were built in France, such as our first battleship, the ''Brasil'', received in 1865, or the aircraft carrier São Paulo, which was in service between 2000 and 2014.

Today, with the complex installed here in Sepetiba Bay, Brazil is positioned among a small group of countries that dominates the construction of submarines.

ProSub is Brazil’s largest and most important international cooperation project in defense. It guarantees Brazilian sovereignty on our coast, strengthens the naval industry by generating jobs and income, and promotes development for the whole sector with a great deal of innovation.

On this occasion, we launched into the sea, through our dear godmother Janja, the ‘’Tonelero’’, the third in the series of conventional submarines developed with France from 2008.

Brazil already has two Scorpène-class submarines, the Riachuelo and the Humaitá. In 2025, the year of the bicentenary of relations with France, we will launch into the sea a fourth, the Angostura.

Our defense cooperation is not limited to the naval dimension. The helicopters that President Macron and I used earlier to get to Itaguaí are produced in Itajubá, Minas Gerais, the only helicopter factory in Latin America and the result of the Helibrás/Airbus consortium.

The continuity of its operations and possible expansion into civil use aircraft are in line with Brazil's neo-industrialization policy.

President Macron and I agreed to expand this effort with the creation of the Bilateral Arms Committee, with a focus on developing synergies and promoting greater balance in our trade in defense products. In the space field, the geostationary satellite built in Nice in 2017 has ensured independence and sovereignty in defense communications and involved an ample process of absorption and technology transfer.

This will be a powerful tool for research and also to support the defense, energy, climate and health sectors. It will be fundamental to the development of Artificial Intelligence in the country.

My dear friend President Macron,

Our partnership, with its high component of cooperation in cutting-edge technologies, reinforces Brazil's determination to achieve greater strategic autonomy, essential in the face of the multiple crises and challenges that humanity faces in this 21st century.

My friends and my colleagues,

Before I finish, I would like, above all, for the French press to have a little understanding of why this idea of Brazil taking care of a defense strategy that allows Brazil, a country that has 16,800 kilometers of dry border, is important. A country that has a maritime border of 8,500 square kilometers.

Brazil that borders the entire African continent, because here we treat the Atlantic Ocean as if it were an Atlantic River, because we border the entire African continent. And we have to worry about our defense. Not because we want war. Defense is for those who want peace. Defense for those who live on a continent that has already defined, at all the CELAC meetings, that we are going to continue, in Latin and South America, to be a Zone of Peace.

A country that wants to protect itself and build the sovereignty of its people has to worry about its airspace, it has to worry about its mineral wealth, it has to worry about the wealth of its soil and subsoil, it has to worry about the wealth of its sea. But, above all, we have to worry about the tranquility of the 203 million Brazilians who live in this country and we have to worry about the tranquility that we need to guarantee to planet Earth. Because, today, we know that there is a very serious problem of animosity against the democratic process of this country, against the democratic process of planet Earth. And we know that the partnership that France is building with us is a partnership that will allow two important countries, each one in a continent, to prepare so that we can live with that adversity, without worrying about any kind of war, because we have been peace defenders at any time in our history.

I want to tell you, President Macron, to return from Brazil knowing that the Brazilian people love the French people. And I'm sure that the French people like the Brazilian people. We have to take advantage of this friendship, this understanding, so that we can strengthen both countries, so that we can exchange our scientific and technological knowledge, so that we can produce a good Artificial Intelligence, and not an evil Artificial Intelligence. An Artificial Intelligence to help take care of health, to help take care of poor people, to improve the decarbonization of planet Earth, and not an Artificial Intelligence to tell fake news every single day to the ears and eyes of billions and billions of human beings.

When we meet tomorrow in Brasilia, we are going to sign possibly the largest number of agreements that Brazil and France have ever signed. I would like you, dear friend, President Macron, when you finish our conversation tomorrow, to go back to France and tell the French that Brazil wants the knowledge of nuclear technology - not to make war, we want to have the knowledge to guarantee all the countries that want peace, to know that Brazil will be on everyone's side, because war doesn't build, war destroys. What builds is development, scientific knowledge, technological knowledge and it is in this area that we want to strengthen our partnership with the French people.

Thank you very much for being here and congratulations to the Brazilian Navy. Congratulations to Olsen for his work, congratulations to the former commanders. And I'm sure that this affection that we have for the Navy, we have for the Brazilian Air Force, the Aeronautics and we have for the Brazilian Army, because a country of the size of Brazil needs to have highly qualified Armed Forces, highly prepared, to the point of responding to guarantee peace when our country needs it.

Congratulations to all of us on this memorable day. And I hope that now we have the chance to see the submarine get in the water, because so far we haven't seen it.

Cheers and good luck to the French and Brazilian people.