We should say to the West: "You have been supporting dictators for too many years. Don't expect the people to introduce democracy over night. It is going to take time." It took time with the French revolution, it took time with the Eastern European revolutions. And it is going to take time there.

Our emotions are often beautiful, but they can also be dangerous. They represent our spontaneity, and seem to speak to us of our freedom.

When we begin to look around us, to observe individuals and societies, and to study philosophies and religions, we realize that our loneliness is shared. Our solitude is plural, and our singularity is the similarity between us.

Mankind must be positively and constructively wary of mankind, of their fellow man, of their families, of the members of their faith community, of their fellow-citizens.

Populism is everywhere. We have religious populism in the Muslim-majority countries as much as we have populism in the United States of America.

Now no one can deny the fact that whatever is the state of the affairs in the country, you did not have the army controlling the country and you have a pluralistic society anyway.

Islam, as a religion, has been established in France for a long time, and the religious question has been resolved in this country. Islam does not threaten France's future in any way.