From President Sarkozy's speech at Westminster last week -"It is indeed here, within these walls, that modern political life was born. Without this Parliament, would parliamentary democracy have ever existed in the world? Hasn't this parliamentary practice, begun in this place, become the best guarantee against tyranny?
The history of this institution today influences most contemporary political regimes. This Parliament has become what it is through the fight for the protection of essential individual freedoms and the principle of the consent to taxation.
These two fundamental conquests, which this Parliament was the first in the world to achieve, are still today the cornerstones of all our democracies. It is here that parliamentarians have gradually developed what is a party, an electoral programme and finally a majority.
It is through these institutions that the United Kingdom's greatness has emerged. And I am so honoured to address you precisely because the political heart of the United Kingdom is beating under this roof."
