French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called for the establishment of a "more united, sovereign and democratic" Europe in the face of numerous geopolitical and economic challenges.
In the speech lasting nearly two hours at Paris' Sorbonne University, he warned that military, economic and other pressures could weaken and fragment the 27-nation EU.
"We need to be clear on the fact that our Europe is mortal — it can die," Macron said.
He said the bloc's survival "depends only on our choices." He warned that "the rules of the game" had changed and the EU was not "armed against the risks we face."
"We are still too slow and not ambitious enough," he said, calling for a "powerful Europe."
The French president has long called for the European Union to assert itself as a cohesive geopolitical bloc in the face of rivalry with the United States and China and is a strong supporter of Brussels' stated policy of achieving "strategic autonomy."
The speech won a positive response from Macron's main EU partner, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with whom he has often clashed on defence and trade issues.
"France and Germany want Europe to be strong," Scholz said in a post. "Your speech contains good ideas on how we can achieve this."
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