For France to become a force again!

France does not need further promises.

She needs decisions.

For too long, we have become accustomed to watching the problems settle, the difficulties accumulate and the French lose confidence in their country, in their institutions and sometimes even in their future.

We can continue that way.

Or we can decide that this is enough.

This presidential election must be a moment of truth. This is a time when we stop bypassing the subjects that are annoying, pushing back the difficult decisions and always calling for more effort from those who are working, undertaking and making our country live.

My political party wants to break up.

A break with immobilism. A break with renunciation. A break with the idea that France would be condemned to suffer.

We want to talk to all the French.

To the one who gets up early to go to work.

To the one who runs his business with a fragile cash flow and does not count his hours.

To the craftsman who sees his loads increase.

To the family that has to calculate each expense at the end of the month.

To those who live in a rural municipality and feel that public services are disappearing.

To those who simply want to live from their work, raise their children and look forward with confidence.

Politics must start talking to those French.

We do not promise that everything will be easy.

We do not promise that everything will change in a few months.

But we choose to tell the truth: some decisions will be difficult, some interests will have to be faced and some habits will have to be abandoned.

To govern is not to try to please everyone.

It's choice.

Choose to put the state authority back at the heart of the Republic.

Choose to defend French sovereignty in areas where it is necessary.

Choose to better protect those who work.

Choose to support those who undertake.

Choose to empower our public services.

Choose to fight insecurity with a clearly assumed policy.

Finally, choose to consider the French not as a population to be administered, but as a nation to be served.

But this campaign must not only be that of a party.

It must be that of a country.

For France belongs to all those who make it live.

To those who vote for us.

To those who don't vote for us.

To those who doubt.

To those who hesitate.

Those who no longer believe much in politics.

We want to speak to them without contempt and arrogance.

Because a strong democracy is not afraid of debate.

She's organizing it.

She assumes it.

It then voted on it.

In this campaign, we will not ask the French to choose between fear and anger.

We will suggest that they choose between renunciation and action.

France can do better.

She can regain confidence.

She can regain authority.

It can regain ambition.

Above all, she can regain this essential conviction: her future is not written in advance.

The next quinquennium should not be that of missed opportunities.

It must be that of political courage.

The one where we stop asking France to apologize for being France.

The one where one gives value to work, strength to the state and trust to those who build.

The one where one looks at the difficulties in the face and where one acts.

We do not yet know all that this campaign will require of us.

But we know why we do it.

So that those who work can live with dignity.

So that those who undertake can succeed.

So that those who transmit can believe in the future.

So that those who love their country can say it without having to justify themselves.

And so that our children can one day look at France with the same confidence we want to find today.

France is not condemned to decline.

She is not condemned to suffer.

She is not doomed to give up.

She can decide.

And now it is up to the French to decide on the future.

The campaign begins.

France must also start moving forward.