I've taken my time. I've thought about it; I've consulted, and I've decided that we are going to create a new political movement, one that will be neither on the Right or the Left.
— Emmanuel Macron
I don't want to create a too-big-to-fail player.
I have decided to create a new political movement.
France is a strong, wealthy country.
We have to provide more visibility, more certainty to the investors and reduce the cost of failure.
When politics is no longer a mission but a profession, politicians become more self-serving than public servants.
Under the French system, you have to take into consideration that every five years, the president is directly elected by the people. He's the one that has the legitimacy.
I am from the Left, but I am happy to work with people from the Right.
Consolidation means less equipment, less networks, and less jobs.
We have to breathe new life into Europe.
We have a lack of growth in Europe, in eurozone, and in France, and we are struggling hard to recover and restore this growth.
I have a vision of my country, and I cannot sit and watch things pass by.
We should not replicate the situation where one country is in a situation to hijack the rest of Europe because they organize a referendum.
We've created rigidities at the entrance point in artisanal occupations.
Popularity isn't an objective in itself. I'm not in this game.
We back Hinkley Point project. It's very important for France; it's very important for the nuclear sector and EDF.
We have the eurozone. Could we accept to be cleared, regulated, and de facto have inflows and outflows from a country that has decided to leave the E.U.? For me, definitely not.
I realised how much the system did not want to change.
We can't have our industry progressively destroyed by cheap Chinese imports.
We have to shift the social model from a lot of formal protections toward loosening bottlenecks in the economy.
We have no choice but to reform this country.
We can't fix the real problems if we only cauterize and don't treat the roots of evil.
We ask our companies to restructure; we ask employees to work more for less money because there is overproduction, but then we're unable to defend them from cheaper Chinese imports. We are insane.
We will open a new bunch of reforms regarding the labor market to make it simpler and adaptable, more flexible.
My priority is my economy minister mandate and to create momentum.
To think that our political organisation is immutable is the best way to hand the country over to the extremes.
E.U. is the first global domestic market.
I come all wreathed in a reputation the press has made for me. Judge me on my actions. That's all that counts.
Even if the Brits decide to remain, we will have to avoid a contagion on other countries.
You can suddenly have a series of countries waking up and saying, 'I want the same status as the Brits,' which will be, de facto, the dismantling of the rest of Europe.
We need young Frenchmen who want to become billionaires.
I push reforms. I tell the truth to people, even when it's tough for the country.
I am not just a liberal movement. I come from the progressive Left. I am trying to refresh and counter the system.
The financial passport is part of full access to the E.U. market, and a precondition for that is the contribution to the E.U. budget. That has been the case in Norway and in Switzerland. That is clear.
If I were to reason like those who roll out red carpets, I would say we might have some repatriations from the City of London.
I'm in a left-wing government, unashamedly... but I also want to work with people from the Right who commit to the same values.
I don't believe that killing the French model in order to become the U.K. or the United States overnight is the solution. You have a big debate on inequality there, and for our society, a lot of inequality would not be bearable.
My key message is be innovative, be ambitious; think global and big on day one.
The only way governments or would-be governments respond to ills these days is by seeking to lower the temperature... and that tends to mean public spending.
When the president and the prime minister decide to implement reforms, they have all the measures they need to pass them and enforce them.
In a common project, we can bring together well-meaning people from the Left and the Right.
When you discuss your steel industry with China you are credible because you are part of the E.U., not because you are just U.K. You will be completely killed otherwise. You will never be in the situation to negotiate face to face with the Chinese because your domestic market is not relevant for the Chinese in comparison with their domestic market.
I touched the limits of our political system, which pushes one to last-minute compromises. Explanations are rarely given. It plays to people's fears because it hasn't built an ideological consensus. It produces flawed solutions and too often ignores reality.
We are implementing an in-depth reform on labor market, not to reduce rights for workers but to provide more visibility and more efficiency to investors and employers because it's the key for job creation.
I don't have luxurious tastes or great needs, but my independence is worth a lot to me.
You need a debate and a vote on the principles: Do you want more Europe or less Europe? Do you believe we are more efficient with defense and security with Europe, or not? Do you believe we are more efficient for our companies with or without Europe? Those are the questions we have to discuss and push our people to vote on it.
Believe in individual initiatives, in courage, in risk.
I'm not a movie star, and I don't want to become a movie star.
I kept trying, proposing, pushing... If you want to succeed, you cannot leave work half done, and unfortunately, many things were left half done. The choice was made not to launch a second wave of economic reforms that I was proposing.
We have to be extremely strict on the implementation of Brexit so there is a common approach between member states. We must avoid a sector-by-sector or country-by-country approach, and ask the U.K. to be clear.
