The European model is in danger if we obliterate the principle of personal responsibility.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Internal protectionism in Europe would be deadly, really a disaster for European economies.
We have a huge responsibility to make sure that Europe remains a prosperous and peaceful continent.
The institutions of the European Union, and the states that belong to this union, each and every one, are paying the price of our failures, hesitations and contradictions. We should each ask ourselves how personally responsible we are.
Irresponsibility is the mark of every European politician who holds out the promise of a better life to immigrants and encourages them to leave everything behind and risk their lives in setting out for Europe.
When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves.
But there is a corollary to freedom and that's personal responsibility, and the real challenge is how you generate that personal responsibility without imposing it.
Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.
We find ourselves in a difficult situation in Europe. There's a crisis, weak growth, unemployment... my duty is to ensure that by the end of my mandate France is in a better state than it was at the beginning.
On immigration, Europe is in danger of displaying the worst of itself: selfishness, haphazard decision-making and rows between member states.
As a nation we have the right to decide our own affairs, to mould our own future. This does not pose any danger to anybody. Our nation is fully aware of the responsibility for its own fate in the complicated situation of the contemporary world.