This assumes an upward revision of the European Budget, which is precisely what Jacques Chirac refuses to do. On the contrary, he has demanded a reduction.

The single currency should allow the European Union, and therefore France, to balance its monetary strength with the United States. It should help us adjust to the development of China.

The demographic weight of countries such as China and India exercise a massive pressure on our wages and salaries. They have accomplished massive technological advances and the revolution in information technology has reduced the costs of transport.

The EU should help the emergence of "organized multipolarity" in the currently non-polar world.

The U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol endangers the entire process.

Without sounding too grandiose, the survival of the planet itself is at stake, you have rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans, immigration sparked by climate change, droughts that are much more severe.

I am a partisan and artisan of Europe. But I draw the lessons of my experience in government.