I don't want euro bonds that serve to mutualize the entire debt of the countries in the euro zone. That can only work in the longer-term. I want euro bonds to be used to finance targeted investments in future-oriented growth projects. It isn't the same thing. Let's call them 'project bonds' instead of euro bonds.

I would like a UK fully engaged in Europe, but I can't decide in place of the British. I see that for the moment they want to be more in retreat.

Everyone says Francois Mitterrand had huge charisma. But before he was president they used to call him badly dressed, old, archaic and say he knew nothing about the economy until the day he was elected. It's called universal suffrage. When you're elected, you become the person that embodies France.

If we don't manage to find not just a compromise but a lasting peace agreement, we know perfectly well what the scenario will be. It has a name, it's called war.

Nothing was given to me, nothing was entrusted to me, nothing was assigned to me. Everything I have, I took by right.

I don't want to leave my successor and my children to pay for France's debt.

I'm not a lukewarm European. I know that the German-French friendship is indispensable, no matter who the countries' leaders are.