Emmanuel Macron

Mr. Prime Minister, Madame, honorable ministers, Mr. Speaker, Lord Speaker, honorable members of Parliament, members of the House of Lords, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you Speaker, for your kind words, and greatly appreciate everyone's warm welcome. On behalf of my wife, Brigitte, and myself and my whole delegation, thank you very much for that.

And it is a very great honor to speak before the two houses of the British Parliament, a place composed of both a high chamber and a low chamber, a place of history bygone and history in the making, a place where modern democracy emerged and the principles of democratic representation and consent were born.

In making its own rules, your great people has inspired among the rest of the world, and in particular my compatriots, who regard you with respect, with more than a bit of admiration. In France, Montesquieu and Rousseau drew from the works of Locke to such an extent that the Lettres philosophiques by Rousseau are often referred to as Letters on the English in my country. But please, do not misunderstand me.

I'm not going so far as to say that England gave birth to the French Revolution. However, I have to confess that we love monarchy, but especially when it's not at home. But I really believe that from the Magna Carta to America's Declaration of Independence in 1776, and France's Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789, the same pathway emerged towards democratic order and the rule of law.

And so many times this shared path was forged in the brotherhood of arms. So many times it followed the small trails of the Ardennes and the Vosges mountains under the hail of German bullets from 1914 to 1918. So many times it almost veered off course, taken up by our common ancestors reconquering the Normandy coast inch by inch under the glaring sun of June 1944.

And I would like to thank Prime Minister Starmer, dear Keir, for attending the ceremonies of the 11th of November last year, honoring our fallen soldiers, the British red poppy alongside the Bleu de France, becoming the first British head of government to spend Armistice Day in Paris in 80 years.