In the Palestinian Authority area unemployment is 30 percent and maybe more. The area needs to grow by 10 percent a year for many years if we are going to tackle unemployment and poverty.

As this transition has taken place, it's taken away the summer spike in unemployment.

It is clear to everybody that France needs reform. Our unemployment is too high, particularly among the young, but employers fear that once people are taken on staff it becomes very difficult and expensive to lay them off in a downturn, so we need labor market flexibility.

It's a crazy society now. It's the richest society ever and yet people are overworked. There's more unemployment, more crime, more confusion, more broken marriages. This is a breakdown. Every culture breaks down. Every society breaks down, whether it's Rome, Spain, the British Empire. The people in charge probably didn't get it until they had their heads chopped off.

I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.

In a global marketplace with its increased insecurities and - indeed often - volatility and instability, national economic stability is at a premium, the precondition for all we can achieve, and no nation can secure the high levels of sustainable investment it needs without both monetary and fiscal stability together.