Sarkozy's Speech

The full text of the inaugural speech of French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Paris summit of the Union for the Mediterranean held at the Grand Palais in Paris:

Ladies and Gentlemen Heads of States and Government of Europe and Mediterranean,

Mr Secretary General of the UN,

Mr President of the European Commission,

Mr President of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council,

Mr President of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly,

Ministers,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear Friends,

It is an immense honour for France to host, here in Paris, the representatives of all the people who share the Mediterranean and for whom it is the source of all faith, all reason and all culture.

These people who have so often been divided, have so often fought, have so often torn each other apart, not because they were too different, but because underneath it all they were too similar, and who today have joined together because they know they share the same dream of civilisation and they want that dream to finally come true.

The Mediterranean has created a certain notion of happiness, wisdom and self-esteem. It has also created tragedy and its own way of feeling and expressing joy, suffering and human passion. It has pushed, sometimes to the extreme, the zest for life and fascination with death.

Today, everyone wants the forces of life to triumph. Everyone knows it will be hard. Everyone has memories of injustice, pain and broken dreams that will not fade away. Yet without forgetting any of the past, we owe it to the future generations, and primarily our children, to look to the future together.

Everyone is well aware that if this future is to be great, if this future is to be bright, if this future is to be a future of peace, a future of justice, a future of progress, everyone will have to make an effort as the European did to put an end to he deadly spiral of war and violence that, century upon century, sporadically brought barbarity to the heart of civilisation.

If we are all gathered here, it is because we all believe that the European dream and the Mediterranean dream are inextricably linked, that they will come true together or they will be broken together.

If we are gathered here, it is because we cannot base our relations merely on tolerance, because we have to go further and open ourselves up to one another in understanding and respect.

If we are gathered here, it is because we no longer want to be merely neighbours, we want to be partners.

In 1995, Europe took the initiative of launching the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue in Barcelona, which raised so many hopes among all those who love the Mediterranean and that it will one day cease to be the theatre of so many dangers and so many tragedies and will become a melting pot of civilisation again.

For the last thirteen years, the people of Europe and the Mediterranean have learnt to talk to one another and together think about the future. What Barcelona has accomplished must be sustained.

Yet the time has come for the awareness of our common destiny to prompt us to find the way to take action together, to together resume control of our common future, together write our common history. Huge challenges lie ahead, and they can only be taken up together.

The time has also come for the solidarity dictated by geography, history and culture to drive the peoples of Europe and the Mediterranean to share the responsibilities, decide unanimously, and recognise equal rights and duties for all.

We will only manage to build a better future by sharing power, in true solidarity, with respect for one another. This is the basis of the political choice, the moral choice, the fundamental historical choice of the Union for the Mediterranean: Parity, Equality and Shared Decision-Making Power.

The success or failure of everything we undertake together will depend first and foremost on the ability of each and every one of us to truly share. This means building increasingly close solidarity based on concrete projects.

Learning to get to know one another, understand each other, and respect each other by working together on projects that will satisfy everyone's vital interests. And in this way prepare the ground for prosperity, stability and peace.

This new approach to the relations between the peoples of Europe and the Mediterranean will be symbolized by this joint presidency at the head of the Union for the Mediterranean, which will join a Northern country with a Southern country.

And it is in this spirit that, with Egypt, France intends to assume on behalf of you al this responsibility that you have done it the honour of entrusting in it.

Not bloc against bloc, not North against South, not Europe on one side and everyone else on the other, not face to face, not even side by side, but united, together expressing everyone's common interest, together embodying this solidarity on which we wish to build our common future.

It is in the Mediterranean that the first fraternal civilisation was born, built on the idea of diversity. It is for all the peoples of the Mediterranean to again impart this lesson to all humankind by reviving this diversity that in the past enabled all the peoples and all the faiths of Cordoba, Tangiers and Constantine, Tunis, Alexandria, Beirut and so many other cities to live in pace, with mutual respect and in the knowledge that beneath their differences lay the same sense of humanity, the same love for life and the same need for justice that united them all.

It is in the Mediterranean that the religions of the Book were born. It is around the Mediterranean and nowhere else that they must be reconciled.

Together, we can build a major alliance between Africa, the Middle East and Europe out of the Mediterranean. We can make it the cleanest sea in the world, but also the world's largest co-development laboratory.

And by giving everyone access to water, food, energy and healthcare, by sharing knowledge, knowhow and education with everyone, by building shared universities, shared laboratories, by together creating the conditions for all young people to move freely between shores, by pooling our resources to safeguard people's security as best we can, we will show al of humankind what the beautiful word civilisation can still mean.

And we will teach our children how peoples who have lashed so often, but who still recall Antigone's cry - "I have come to share love, not to share hate"- and who remember that all their prayers speak of love, can once again understand and love one another.