I could have made a fortune in cheeseburgers, but I finally chose politics.

• I perfectly understood President Obama's attitude throughout the French presidential campaign. He had no reason to distance himself from Nicolas Sarkozy. It's the basic solidarity that leaders who worked together owe to each other.
• An education program is, by definition, a societal program. Work should be done at school, rather than at home.
• Each country has a soul, and France's soul is equality.
• I want the French people to respect values that allow each individual to practice his or her faith, but in the frame of our common rules of secularism.
• We are near, very near, to an end to the eurozone crisis... The worst - in the sense of the fear of the eurozone breaking up - is over. But the best isn't there yet.
• My real adversary has no name, no face, no party. It will never be elected, yet it governs - the adversary is the world of finance.
• My adversary is the world of finance.
• I don't want euro bonds that serve to mutualize the entire debt of the countries in the euro zone. That can only work in the longer-term. I want euro bonds to be used to finance targeted investments in future-oriented growth projects. It isn't the same thing. Let's call them 'project bonds' instead of euro bonds.
• That is now my mission: to provide a European vision of growth, employment, prosperity - in one word, our future.
• Between France and Senegal there's a history. There's a language that we both speak. There's a culture that we share and to which both of our peoples have contributed. But beyond our history, beyond our language, beyond the links that have united us for so long, what unites us today is the future.