« It will be impossible to recreate solidarity without finding a new collective cement. The problem is that the places of what is called ordinary civics - conscription, school, the neighbourhood itself - have gradually decomposed. »

« The citizens, sovereigns, this political people who impose their mark more and more strongly, are becoming less and less powerful. Political citizenship is progressing at the same time as social citizenship is declining. This rift of democracy is the major fact of our time, carrying the most terrible threats. If it were to continue, it would eventually falter for the democratic regime itself. »

« ... governing is also talking. Talk to explain, to give a course, to draw a horizon, to report on his actions. Talk, because language is organizer of the human world, quite simply. A democratic policy involves giving language to what people are experiencing, making public action, its objectives and vicissitudes readable, and finding words that express at some point the meaning of collective trial or pride. To speak truth is to increase the control of citizens over their existence and to enable them to establish a positive relationship with political life. To speak false or to speak hollow is, conversely, to amplify the gap. In the strongest sense of the word, political language is therefore at the heart of building a bond of trust. For it is in the feeling of its righteousness that lies the possibility of linking the present to the future. »