A warm welcome to all those present at this great initiative.

“Comply with the Constitution, raise wages and pensions, for a better life”, this is the path we propose, and which is necessary to serve what matters and what matters is the life of those who work, those who have worked a lifetime and the youth.

The march that we are holding here in Lisbon, but also at the same time in Porto, is an important moment of resistance, of affirmation of freedom and democracy, but also of hope and affirmation of the alternative that the Country needs.

A march that gives expression to the great journey of contact, clarification and mobilisation that we carried out across the Country, in a remarkable action whose style is here to stay and intensify, in hundreds of towns, companies, public services, with thousands of exchanges, face to face, eye to eye, collecting signatures.

A short while ago we handed more than 140,000 signatures to the Prime Minister, more than 140,000 demands for a response to the main problems and the expectations and aspirations of the majority.

More than 140,000 pledges to fight by workers, pensioners and youth for higher wages and pensions, for the right to healthcare, for the right to housing, for the rights of children and parents.

Demands for that better life to which we are entitled, for that fair life that is enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic, which have to be swiftly complied.

No matter how much propaganda and disinformation there is, it doesn't erase the reality of a Country where the overwhelming majority of workers, those who create wealth, those who make the Country work, are faced with low wages.

Where 30 % of workers face the scourge of precariousness that cuts across all sectors, from education to industry, from digital platforms to the politically despised culture sector.

A country where 1.8 million work shifts and nights and where thousands, including many retail and department store workers, don't know what a holiday or weekend is.

A Country where you have to hold two or three jobs to pay your rent, electricity and gas bills and food.

Where 300,000 children and hundreds of thousands of workers live in poverty, as do many elderly people, with 1 million pensioners receiving less than 510 euros a month.

A Country with closed medical emergency rooms, where there is a shortage of doctors, teachers, nursery and pre-school vacancies, where hundreds of students drop out of higher education due to financial difficulties and more than 40,000 have to work while studying.

Where science is tied to big interests and researchers and scientists are made redundant.

A Country where the cost of living keeps rising, starting with food, where sacrifices are made every day to be able to afford the essential commodity of a home.

A Country that drives its people into emigration, where people have to choose between food and medicines, and where small entrepreneurs, farmers and merchants are struggling to keep their businesses afloat.

A Country with an economic model based on low wages, which doesn't promote national production, which accumulates structural deficits and dependencies, which sacrifices public investment in the name of the budget surplus trophy.

A trophy that is well raised even if the emergency services are closed, there are thousands of students without teachers, or the public services are what they are.

A Country where the majority is facing increasing hardship while the economic groups and multinationals, the ones who think they own everything, accumulate more and more wealth.

This is the real conflict.

On one side are the workers, the people and the youth, on the other are those who want more exploitation, job precariousness, even more deregulation of working hours and the theft of rights.

Those who want the disease business, privatisations, the assault on Social Security resources, who talk about reforming the State so that it submits even more to their businesses, benefits and privileges.

Those who theorise, those who concretise, those who support and those who support this policy of confrontation with the Constitution, who promote inequalities and injustices, disregard the lives of the majority and bow before the interests of economic groups.

Those who have taken a clear stance on the PCP's motion to reject the government's programme.

PSD and CDS are putting forward a programme tailored to the interests of the banks and economic groups and, faced with this declaration of war on working people, Chega, Iniciativa Liberal and PS have decided to set themselves up as the trio supporting this policy.

Together they form the quintet of regression that plays under the baton of the old neoliberal maestro.

They can fabricate all the excuses and create all the narratives they want.

Those who support this policy today will be held responsible for the consequences of their choices tomorrow.

They will be held responsible for the impoverishment, injustice and inequality.

They will be held responsible for the arms race and the madness of war.

They will be held responsible for giving in to the minority, which is fattening itself on the back of tax benefits, corporate income tax cuts, EU funds, the diversion of public resources, State support and favours, and tailor-made laws.

This minority that is growing at the expense of shady deals and economic crimes, of which the BES/Novo Banco case is a shocking example, with the Portuguese people footing the bill and an American fund making millions of euros.

This powerful minority, which dominates the national economy, which is taking over the institutions, controls the media groups, promotes and finances forces and parties and its lying and demagogic agenda to divide the workers, the people and the youth.

To continue to divide in order to continue to rule and exploit.

It is the backward and outdated capitalist system that they seek to present as new, which is the root cause of the difficulties of the majority, regardless of the colour of their skin, their culture, their nationality or their choices.

The more the majority is divided, the more the minority is fattening at our expense.

It is for this large majority of our people, those who work, those who have worked all their lives, the youth, small entrepreneurs, merchants and producers, it is for all those who rightly seek and have the right to a better life, that politics must serve.

What is needed, and what is needed now, is an increase in all wages and a special increase in pensions.

There is money, there is wealth created, the choice to be made is to distribute more fairly this wealth, which is created every day by those who work.

What is decisive is to put an end to precarious employment and to give stability to the lives of those who work, to put an end to the expiry of collective bargaining agreements and to restore the most favourable treatment for workers.

Those who work need time to live, a 35-hour week and an end to the brutal deregulation of life and working hours.

What is needed in the lives of the majority is to combat fiscal injustice and not make it worse, to apply this principle to personal income tax, to tax on profits, to reduce VAT on electricity, gas and telecommunications, to set the price of a gas cylinder at 20 euros.

What is urgently needed is to invest 1% of GDP in housing, regulate rents and lower mortgage payments.

What the Country needs, and in particular the youth, is houses to live and a public network of nurseries.

What is urgently needed is to save the National Health Service, retain professionals, hire teachers, strengthen public services - this is where investment should be made, not in weapons to feed the profits of those who make a business out of war, destruction and death.

Give Peace a chance, that's what's needed.

Let the cannons of war be silenced and let the political solutions to conflicts be heard.

What is urgently needed is to put an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people at the hands of the State of Israel, the United States and the European Union and to recognise the State of Palestine.

It is true that we are facing increased threats to freedoms, democracy and rights, but there is strength and people to open up the path that is needed.

Many of those who took part in the action organised by the PCP and signed up for this great journey voted for other parties in the last elections for various reasons, but they certainly don't want a policy that crushes them and they will be there, with us, in the front line of the struggle against this disastrous course for their lives.

These are demanding times, times when fear, hatred, racism and division are being promoted.

Times of threats to the Constitution, of attacks on rights and the promotion of war.

This is a time of lies, censorship and manipulation that is so crystal clear, to hide injustices and those who are really responsible.

But this is also the time to resist and take the initiative.

To resist the power of big capital and its goals of domination and exploitation.

To resist the offensive that is coming from the government's policy and those who support it and to confront the projects of the reactionary forces.

The PCP is here to promote resistance, take the initiative and propel the wheels of History.

Here we are to bring forces and wills together.

To defend freedom and democracy.

To fulfil the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

To promote the struggle and the claiming action.

This struggle, which we welcome from here, will develop with the strength of the workers, the determination of the people, the resoluteness of the users, the courage of the most disadvantaged and the creativity of the youth.

We are not doomed to exploitation, speculation, submission, war, injustice and inequality.

Portugal is not a province of the European Union, it is not a NATO appendage, Portugal is not a US base.

Portugal is a sovereign country that can and must define its own path.

The more than 140,000 people who signed the petition, the thousands we spoke to and even those who didn't have the opportunity, know that they can count on the PCP.

Here we are, with confidence in the struggle for rights, for a sovereign Portugal, for progress and development.

The Country needs a jolt, needs to free itself from impositions and constraints and open up a new path at the service and only at the service of the majority, the path of April's values.

A course and a project in everyone's hands, but in particular, a goal and a path that young people must continue to take as their own.

The Country needs the strength, willingness and irreverence of the young people, and the youth need this new path.

“Comply with the Constitution, raise wages and pensions, for a better life” - that's a commitment to action that we need in order to build our collective destiny.