Emmanuel Macron

Our interests lie in attracting added value and talent to France as a result of Brexit, but also in having a balanced relationship with Great Britain. We must not sacrifice the short term for our bilateral relationship.

A romantic or classical view of the French approach would have been to say, 'It's a French company; let no one attack it. Let's block any merger. But the reality is Alcatel-Lucent is not a French company; it's a global company. Its main markets are China and the U.S. Its ownership is foreign; most of its managers aren't French.

To avoid the trap of Europe fragmenting on the economy, security, and identity, we have to return to the original promises of the European project: peace, prosperity and freedom. We should have a real, adult, democratic debate about the Europe we want.

When politics is no longer a mission but a profession, politicians become more self-serving than public servants.

You can block a marriage, but you cannot force a marriage.

Believe in individual initiatives, in courage, in risk.

I don't have luxurious tastes or great needs, but my independence is worth a lot to me.

It's about our ability precisely to integrate a people and offer jobs, and that, for me, is one of the key rationales of the reforms I'm pushing, and I'm a strong believer in that when you lift barriers, when you deregulate a lot of stuff, basically you improve the equality of opportunities.

We have to provide more visibility, more certainty to the investors and reduce the cost of failure.