The holding of this initiative, and of three dozen more that are taking place from North to South of the country, is the culmination of the national action promoted by the PCP, which began about a month ago with the motto - fight COVID, recover backlogs, guarantee access to healthcare - which aims to draw attention to the health situation and, fundamentally, to denounce the campaign that is underway against the National Health Service, by the economic groups in the business of disease.

First of all, I would like to thank you for your presence at this Public Session evoking the 107th. anniversary of the birth of Álvaro Cunhal, which, in this period of commemoration of the centennial of the Portuguese Communist Party, we decided to hold under the motto “Álvaro Cunhal and the PCP” and with it honour this central figure and major reference of our contemporary history.

As we have always done, here we are, today in Castanheira do Ribatejo, in the municipality of Vila Franca de Xira, to signal and celebrate the Socialist Revolution of October 1917, in this year which marks its hundred and third anniversary. We do this by renewing in this celebration our deep conviction that it remains in its liberating act and in its achievements as the seed of the future, as the great enterprise that continues to tell us that another world is possible.