"During this conference, I drew a parallel between my youth "after the end of civilisation", referring to Nazism, and today's youth, particularly the students at the Ecole Normale Supérieure who made up the audience, drawing their attention to the risk that they were "on the eve of the end of democracy”. It's up to them to decide.
“First and foremost, the migratory crisis must be resolved as a matter of urgency
"It also seems to me that the exacerbation of demands for individual freedom could lead to the end of the collective project of "living together", which is largely based on the middle classes, victims of the deindustrialisation of France and the radicalisation of political parties, in notably the NUPES, whose violence has no equal in French political history since 1793. This is a risk for young people who, like all young people, are full of certainties and sometimes intolerance.
"I therefore called for priority to be given to individual and collective responsibility, first and foremost that of political leaders, but also that of young people who, after all, are responsible for the future they are building for themselves. We must guard against a generational conflict fuelled by Greta Thunberg, who never ceases to insult the international community and the older generations with incredible aplomb.
That's not what democracy is about, it's about mutual respect, a spirit of compromise, the desire to build civilisation and the defence of our values: respect for order and security, which are not right-wing values, but values pure and simple, and recognition that "freedom consists in doing whatever does not harm others", in the words of the still very relevant article 4 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
