Western countries in particular can today no longer be separated from Muslim societies, because they have them within themselves. They are themselves internally globalized.

I held a conference in Harvard where Americans said they didn't believe in risk. They thought it was just European hysteria. Then the terrorist attacks happened and there was a complete conversion. Suddenly terrorism was the central risk.

In the first instance, therefore, global terrorism created a kind of global community sharing a common fate, something we had previously considered impossible.

In the final analysis, terror is also another proof of the fact that the superpower is not really a superpower. It was vulnerable.

The world has become so complex that the idea of a power in which everything comes together and can be controlled in a centralized way is now erroneous.

The idea that you surrender your identity when you relinquish national powers is unhelpful. No, indeed, precisely the opposite is the case: if done in an intelligent way, you attain the sovereignty to better solve national problems in cooperation with others.

Nonetheless, we continue to be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state, guarantees homogeneity and thus an appropriate form of democracy and centralized government.