Today's Date:

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AIDS is a powerful and insidious scourge which is shaking our societies to their core; powerful, it’s spreading everywhere, with nothing so far able to stop it, insidiously appearing where it was not expected and showing a remarkable ability to fight back when attacked.

In less than a generation, AIDS has exacted a terrible toll on mankind. In France, it has meant thousands of lives prematurely cut short – I am thinking in particular of homosexuals and haemophiliacs – the lives of women and men ended in their prime. In the rest of the world, first and foremost in Africa, it has meant a tragedy of immense proportions and a serious threat to development efforts. With the rapid spread of the pandemic, the lifeblood is being drained from young nations, more and more children, often themselves infected, are becoming orphans, and anxiety is seizing whole countries which AIDS threatens to deprive of a future.

The epidemic is made worse by the ostracism still attached to it. Intolerable discrimination continues to exist in everyday life, with people unable to access jobs and housing. 110 countries refuse entry to foreigners carrying the virus. Instead of understanding the suffering, instead of grasping the threat, too many societies condemn or refuse to face up to the situation.

This is why, in closing your two conferences’ discussions, I want above all to thank you.

I thank the research workers and doctors from North and South who are making every effort, often with inadequate resources, to understand, to develop more effective treatments, put together social policies and help the patients and their families. I especially thank those who are devoting themselves to the children and adolescents struck by an evil too terrible for them to bear.

I thank the voluntary organizations which embody the determination of the patients and their families not to be victims but players in the fight against AIDS. By mobilizing the scientific and medical communities, alerting political representatives to the issue, and demonstrating worldwide solidarity, these organizations are not only bringing hope and comfort to the patients, but are furthering democracy and bringing maturity to societies.

I wish, today, to issue a solemn appeal.

An appeal to governments of donor countries all over the world to show more generosity, despite budgetary difficulties.

This is not an act of charity, it is an act of shared responsibility in the fight against a global scourge.

An appeal to the developing and transition countries to make the battle against AIDS a national priority.

An appeal to businesses, well represented here, to do even more.

As your discussions, which have opened up so many avenues of hope, come to a close this evening, I want to tell you how France intends to pursue the fight against AIDS.

To accelerate research into effective treatments and a vaccine;

To boost awareness, which is still inadequate;

To make prevention and access to health care universal.

There first has to be understanding in order to act effectively. Many areas remain obscure. A progress report on your scientific research bears witness to this. When it comes to the transmission mechanisms, immune response to infection and during latency, response and resistance to treatment, and viral mutations and their consequences, we must step up our efforts to shed light on the behaviour of HIV and defeat it.

Now that there are increasingly effective treatments – which have saved the lives of thousands but are still costly, difficult and of uncertain long-term efficacy – governments and medical authorities must organize a dialogue between researchers, doctors and patients. We know the urgent need for new treatments of patients for whom the therapies have failed, the pain they suffer and the hope the new molecular drugs represent for them. But we also know how important it is for the treatments to be rigorously tested before being distributed. In this epidemic, scientists and doctors are finding out about the disease at the same time as patients are fighting it, and it is by working together that they will find the molecular drugs that can one day wipe out the virus.

Clearly the most satisfactory outcome will be the development of a preventive or therapeutic vaccine. Special efforts are needed to fund the work under way. I commend the endeavours of the public and private research institutes and laboratories and the spirit of collaboration which your conference exemplifies.

But although scientists and patients are increasingly coordinating their efforts in the South as well as in the North, recognition of the problems, I am afraid, is still insufficient and even, in places, waning.

In the developed countries the advent of multiple therapies and a certain weariness with complying with the discipline of prevention are leading to the re-emergence of risky behaviour. The essential need to demonstrate responsibility – both collective and individual –vis-à-vis this disease cannot be overstated. Screening is often carried out too late: half the new cases are detected only when the first symptoms appear. I would like to stress how imperative it is to direct the education effort towards the young and very young, while at the same time continuing to provide the requisite information for adults. We must also constantly adapt the prevention effort to the new, most affected groups – in France, today, especially heterosexuals, including many young women of African origin.

When working with certain vulnerable communities – for example prostitutes and drug users – we must strike the right balance. We must hit very hard the traffickers, those who deal in drugs, prostitution and slavery, and come to the aid of the victims of these crimes, in a spirit of humanity and in order to protect public health.

Awareness must also be raised in Africa. Today the subject is being dealt with more forthrightly by governments and societies. The commitment of African women has been exemplary. I pay tribute to the personal endeavours of President Nelson Mandela, who has honoured us with his presence, and of the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. They are driving back fear, shame and the taboo. But much remains to be done to ensure that AIDS is seen not as a shameful disease or a curse, but as a scourge threatening the stability and development of the entire continent.

This awareness must become widespread. WHO and UNAIDS studies clearly show that the disease is spreading in Asia, Russia, and central and east European countries. It is urgent for these countries’ citizens and leaders to go on the alert and put in place effective prevention and health care policies, in order to prevent a tragedy.

But everyone understands that prevention without hope of treatment cannot be effective. And here we must vigorously reject a number of ideas that are wrong and even immoral.

We still hear it said that AIDS is a disease suffered only by certain populations. In reality, no one is safe. This is a pandemic that threatens all countries and all peoples.

Some dare to argue publicly that distributing drugs in poor countries is ineffective since, they maintain, patients in poor countries are unable to adhere to their treatment. The reasoning behind this statement is unacceptable. Surveys show that the administration of drugs is equally effective in the South and North, provided of course that appropriate health care facilities are available.

And finally some claim that it is not economically viable to provide care and treatment and that the prevention effort would be more effective. The economic argument is obviously short-sighted. The overall cost of the epidemic is far greater than the cost of administering treatment. There is evidence that the promise of treatment boosts the effectiveness of prevention policies, since this establishes a continuum from the establishment of health care systems to the implementation of prevention policies and treatment. National policies to fight AIDS act as catalysts for development policies by mobilizing the nation in support of public health, education, solidarity and democracy goals.

This is why it is urgent to bring to a successful conclusion the discussion on the conditions governing access to drugs.

We have committed ourselves within the WHO to ensuring that 3 million AIDS victims are receiving treatment by 2005, i.e. about half those requiring it. This falls far short of what is needed, and yet it is an ambitious goal. It makes it particularly urgent to conclude, before Cancun as the G8 promised, discussions in the WTO on access to drugs for poor non-producer countries. You are aware of France's position: we must conclude this discussion in a spirit of generosity. There exist ways of achieving this result without needless restrictions and without undermining intellectual property, which is the very foundation of research.

At the same time we must accelerate discussions and carry out more experiments on pricing. Already treatment costs have come down and the economic viability of massively supplying the poor at cost price has been demonstrated. This issue must be tackled bearing in mind the long-term goals. For this I appeal particularly to the pharmaceutical industry, par excellence the industry of hope. For the pharmaceutical industry it is not just the trust and respect of world public opinion which are at stake, but also its long-term interests and the development of its markets. It is essential for it to go forward, with governments and all the other players involved, by establishing a true partnership.

Finally, we must raise more resources. With the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to which I should like to pay special tribute, we have an outstanding instrument. It was set up in record time. It is already operating on the ground, as its director told us just now, it is saving lives. Naturally we will assess its efficiency extremely carefully. But I am convinced that this multilateral response expresses, better than any other, the ideal of solidarity and collective action that must drive us.

The Fund needs, to start with, $3 billion every year. The European Union and its member States, which are already providing more than half the Fund's resources, must set an example – this is what Romano Prodi told us earlier and Tony Blair recently confirmed – we want Europe to contribute $1 billion a year. For this reason France has decided to triple her contribution and provide the fund with EUR 150 million a year. I welcomed the United States and President Bush’s generous action in committing $15 billion to the fight against AIDS over the next five years. I express the hope that a large portion, $1 billion, will go to the Global Fund every year. This European and American commitment will encourage other donor States to come forward. We are still far from meeting our goal. This is why I personally will continue to fight in all international fora to convince States to make a greater commitment and to ensure the Fund has the level of long-term funding it needs.

Aside from contributions by States, the Fund will work with business which can make a contribution in a wide variety of ways. Experiments carried out in Africa demonstrate the effectiveness of public/private partnerships and of treating patients within companies. A large number of heads of companies have decided to make their teams’ expertise available to the Fund. I also thank the foundations and private donors who have decided in large numbers to become actively involved.

We must also seek other sources of funding, such as voluntary levies on certain private-sector commercial transactions and, in the medium term, there will undoubtedly be a need for recourse to forms of international taxation.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Since the disease appeared in the early 1980s, mankind has suffered terribly but it has won some major victories. Twenty years ago, through the efforts of a number of teams, the virus was identified. Seven years ago, the first therapies appeared, saving the lives of thousands of victims and offering new hope to millions of people living with HIV. For some years now, the requirement for North-South solidarity has been better recognized. Today, we have the medical and financial resources to defeat the epidemic.

AIDS is not just a disease which attacks the immune systems of individuals. Mankind as a whole has a duty to respond to this global scourge.

We owe it to the victims of AIDS, we owe it to young people and to future generations to show a spirit of responsibility, a spirit of partnership, a spirit of solidarity, in order at long last to end the nightmare of a fatal, massive and irreversible disease.

This is the message you are carrying and for which I wish, on behalf of France, to thank you./.