― By Dona Bertarelli
At the Tribune Bleue final, held at the Sorbonne University in Paris last week, I had the honor of opening the competition with a reflection on what drives us to speak, and on what it means to speak for something that cannot speak for itself: the ocean. Below are the full video and transcript (translated into English).
To inspire, educate, explain and share.
Dear minister, ladies and gentlemen, dear finalists, it is an honor to open this final of the Tribune Bleue, here at Sorbonne University, a place shaped by history, where ideas take form and words endure through time.
For what is the point of speaking, if our words change nothing about the silence of the ocean?
The ocean does not cry out. It does not protest. It does not vote. So, the question becomes simple: who will speak for it? And perhaps more importantly: what is it that, one day, compels us to speak up?
I once followed the imagination of a certain Jules Verne. I sailed around the world in less than 80 days. More precisely, 47.
An ocean so vast, and yet never the same.
From one sea to another, everything changes: the colors, the smells, the light, the forms of life unfolding within it. And amid all this richness, one unexpected feeling remains: solitude.
An immense world, far from sight. Far from us.
And perhaps that is why it leaves room for so many human excesses.
Sometimes, it only takes seeing. Some things, once witnessed, never leave us. And then silence is no longer an option.
But finding one’s voice is only the beginning. Keeping it is the real challenge. And that challenge I chose to make my own.
Perhaps this is what eloquence truly means today: not only speaking well, but understanding why we speak, and for whom.
Because in the end, speaking up is already the beginning of protection.
Dear candidates, today, you are not just giving a voice to the ocean, you are carrying it forward.
Now, it is your turn to speak.
I wish you a truly wonderful final.