Canadians are friends and Quebecers are my family. What France knows deep down is that within this great Canadian people, there is a Quebec nation. I do not see how proving my family, brotherly love for Quebec should be strengthened by defying Canada.

Europe is right to tell us to reduce this [France's budget] deficit and spend less. Europe is right to demand this of us but cannot at the same time demand us to increase our dues.

Perhaps the mistake I made at the start of my mandate is not understanding the symbolic dimension of the president's role and not being solemn enough in my acts. A mistake for which I would like to apologise or explain myself and which I will not make again. Now, I know the job.

America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who - with their hands, their intelligence and their heart - built the greatest nation in the world: "Come, and everything will be given to you." She said: "Come, and the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent."

France is the country with the highest taxes in Europe along with Sweden...something of which I am not proud.

Come, and the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent.

I want to wage war against illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, unfair competition, communitarianism, delinquency.