I believe we find ourselves in a period of radical transformation. Regardless of whether it is digitalization, the environment or terrorism. We can be successful in this new world. We have the necessary willingness. The French are inventive and innovative. But we need to finally pick ourselves up.

I think our responsibility as political leaders today, is to push our economic leaders to change their investment behavior, to decide new things, and to help workers to change their jobs. And I think the mistake that Donald Trump decided to make is exactly the mistake we made in France and in Europe. Which was to resist to the change in order to protect the old jobs. What we have to protect is people, not jobs. If you want to protect people, you retrain them.

Today we're full of liquidity in money. And what you have to do is to convince big money to change the mindset and reinvest in these new activities to accelerate this change and create new jobs.

The European community of values is unique: It combines democracy with the market economy, individual freedoms with social justice. How can we expect the U.S. or China to defend these values, this one-of-a-kind European balancing act that has developed over the course of decades?

We have to establish a joint strategy on other issues, such as Iran and North Korea, but also on climate change. That's why I think it is important to speak at length with the American president Donald Trump and show him a path forward for possible cooperation. I feel an obligation to do so.

I often speak with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. When I speak with the Turkish president, I defend European positions. That is how we European partners must do things.

What we learn from the past is that you cannot make peace against people by interfering and - and just launching a war and trying to change a regime without any political solution. So my role is first to avoid any war and try to - to frame the discussion in order to create peace and have a comprehensive peace process and preserve unintelligible and especially in this Middle East region. That's what I tried to do in Lebanon, for instance, by negotiating both with M.B.S., with the Lebanese government.