Listen, there are a series of reasons. The first reasons are related to the situation in the country because I want to start with that because it's not a question of personal ambition. The situation in the country is not good, whatever anyone says. There has been progress made, and those who hear this speech must also be able to hear both the positive and the negative because I always make sure to do both and say both. Unfortunately, some ears only hear the negative, so of course there have been positive things. We must always respect the work. People work day and night, there are millions of Ivorians who work day and night, they accomplish things, that's undeniable. There has been progress, infrastructure has been built, all that is certain, but I always come back to the fundamental problems I highlighted in Soubré. Many of you were there in June 2024 when I said, 'Listen, Côte d'Ivoire is 135th in the world in GDP per capita, so that's the level of wealth of our country compared to other countries in the world. There are 193 countries in the ranking, we are 135th.' So in human development, well, I consulted the available statistics which said we were 166th. That triggered an outcry because it seems some are saying we're not 166th but 159th. Let's say, I'll grant them 159th place, it's still better. And you are 159th out of 193. This isn't a good ranking, especially if you're 24 places below what your level of relative wealth or poverty should allow you to reach. So, a government that wasn't doing anything extraordinary would place Côte d'Ivoire 135th in human development. That's logical; your ranking in human development should more or less reflect your level of wealth or poverty. I can tell you that the -24 we have is one of the worst in the world. Rwanda is at +9, meaning they are ranked better in human development than in GDP per capita. Togo is at +8; they are ranked better in human development than in GDP per capita. Now, for me, this is also a controversial statement, but I stand by it: wealth is created by Ivorian society, by workers, by farmers who grow cocoa, by transporters, by people in the markets. The role of the State is to take this wealth and translate it into human development for those who produce it. So, the score of the state, if there's a score out of 20, it's the HDI, it's not growth, and so if we use this metric, we get a bad score. And by the way, I'll say in passing that in '99 Ivory Coast was 125th in the world in HDI. The HDI has existed for a very long time. 125th when the PDCI left power, so it's possible for our country to reach this level of human development since we've done it in the past. The same Ivorians, when we're 166th or 159th, it's a real problem. So why do I want to be president? Because that's why I talk about human capital, because it's absolutely necessary. And the HDI, I've explained it often, but it measures life expectancy, it measures the number of years of education, basically for children, and the standard of living. These are such basic things that a state that doesn't deliver this has a real problem, so the state needs to be led. I want to tell you, I'm sorry, but we were talking about Senegal, specifically William from Pastef. If you look at their official program, they have a target for the HDI ranking; it's in their program. You can look at Sonko and Diomaye; they say, 'We're going to bring Senegal from such and such an HDI to such and such an HDI.' We have people who say, 'We don't care about the HDI.' Ministers of the Republic paid by taxpayers don't care about the HDI. There are countries that take it as a goal and have strategies to improve their HDI. How can someone say, 'I don't care about life expectancy, I don't care about the level of education, I don't care about the standard of living in a country'? A leader, that's something that needs to change. I'm a president to change that. Then there are things that are more personal. Not only does the country need reconciliation, and that's where we get into the factors that are fortunate. But I think there are some in my personal equation... These are the elements that make me think I have a better chance of being credible when I talk about this reconciliation and a better chance of leading it successfully. Because I said it in Ai, and it was interpreted in various ways, I said I am the first Muslim president of the PDCI. The point I wanted to emphasize is not that I am Muslim, but that I was democratically elected with 96.48% of the vote, and that really shut up all the people who called the PDCI an anti-Muslim party, and so on. So that completely resolved that problem. And that's how we move forward, by demonstrating that prejudices are just prejudices and are not based on facts. That a Muslim can absolutely be president of the PDCI; it doesn't pose a problem. That's also why I insisted on going to Odienné, because I had said in December in Aamoro that I was going back to the North. I have a vision of Côte d'Ivoire where everyone can campaign wherever they want. If the RHDP wants to go to Toudi, to Diboko, no one is forbidden, and if the PDCI wants to go to Ain, well, so much the better. But a conception of Ivory Coast that is completely territorial, with everyone having their own... the North would be forbidden to the PDCI, but why? Why? It makes no sense. So there really is work to be done on reconciliation. I come from a very ecumenical family. President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, for those of us who were close to him, he built the mosque. Perhaps you are too young, but he built the Yamoussoukro mosque well before building the basilica. He brought in craftsmen from Morocco in '65-'66. My father was ambassador; he took care of it at the time. He gave him the best craftsmen because he wanted to have the most beautiful mosque, saying that since I am Catholic, if I ever build a church, people will say it's because of my religion. But I got into Polytechnique thanks to the Catholic Church. It has been mentioned, but I did my preparatory classes at the school... Saint Jesuit of Versailles, who is a Jesuit, I was welcomed by the Jesuits. When there was food in the kitchen, they would make us special dishes. They lent us the crypt under the church during my two years of preparation. We held Friday prayers in the crypt under the church, so I have excellent relationships. I was for a time on the board of directors of one of the largest Jesuit charities in the world. So, for me, ecumenism is a central value, and I believe it's a message that Ivory Coast needs to hear, a truly unifying message. I'm sorry this is a long answer, but it's an important question. And I think that my personal approach allows me to say all these things credibly without offending anyone, and I'm often criticized for it. So, I can say it: I'm in a country where there are many immigrants; my father himself is an immigrant. So, as they say, there's no Thiam in Ivory Coast. Well, that's for sure, we're waiting for Thiam, it's Thiam, but I say be proud of that. I assure you, other Africans are impressed. They say, 'But you are an extraordinary country where someone named Thiam can be elected president of a major party.' In most African countries, that's not possible. I even talk to Senegalese, Togolese, and people from Benin, but in our country, it couldn't happen. So that's not a weakness, it's a strength. It's a strength that every child of Ivory Coast can say to themselves, 'Whatever my name, I can aspire to be President of the Republic if I have the qualities.' People will disregard my father's name, whether a village bears my name or not; they will look at the person and vote for the person. And the PDCI gave me that, and I am very proud of it.
This is an important subject. I saw you just played my speech from Casablanca, but it's a theme I often come back to. There's... how to put it... well, I'll start with capital accumulation in the economy. One of the weaknesses of countries with a Francophone or French economic model is the absence of a funded pension system. The fundamental economic difference between France and other countries, like Germany, Switzerland, and England, is that the French system is a pay-as-you-go system, which is a system that can be defended, but in this system, it's the working population that pays the pensions of retirees in cash. In a funded system, those in Great Britain—whom I salute—I lived there long enough—everyone accumulates during their career. Capital, and that's it, it's this accumulated capital that, after 20 or 30 years, is used to pay for an individual's retirement. So retirement is individual and accumulated, it seems... but what it has allowed is the formation of long-term capital, long-term savings. Longer savings, I'm like William, I speak a little English. He surprised me, I'd never heard English spoken before. It's thanks to you, thanks to you, that I heard this. So, long savings in the economy, and really, if you look at the American economy, all the trillions of dollars we're talking about that are with BlackRock, that are with Pimco, that are with Fidelity, that are with Vanguard, it's all pension fund money. You have to see how the economy is financed. So, Silicon Valley, all the private equity funds that are in Silicon Valley that financed Tesla, that financed Google, it's pension fund money. Those who finance America and the American economy are pension funds. It's this accumulated savings that must be invested long-term with a good... Rehabilitation is necessary to pay for pensions, so having capitalism and a high-performing economy without pension funds is impossible. Therefore, Prudential—people in England understand what it is, but in France, people don't understand what it is because it doesn't exist. A life and pensions company isn't an insurance company; all Prudential does is accumulate savings and invest. At the time I left, it owned 3% of the London Stock Exchange. We were the leading investor on the London Stock Exchange. We had M&G as our asset manager, which had £350 billion, over $500 billion in accumulated capital. But all of that is invested in companies, in the productive economy. So, everything depends on development. To say that when you have a young population—and this is something I did in Indonesia and Vietnam—you absolutely must create pension funds. You absolutely must create pension funds, whatever the... The level of poverty or wealth in a country means creating a system that brings together millions and millions of savers, and that's what should finance the economy. It's not true to think it's impossible in poor countries; there are plenty of poor countries experiencing flooding. Not to mention that we have a demographic time bomb. If we don't do this, how will we finance the pensions of this population? We always say we have plenty of young people, but they don't always stay young. We have a huge population, so we should have started 10 or 15 years ago. We never did it, but we have to start. We need to create pension funds. I'm talking to the CNPS president about this; I've spoken with him about it, and he understands this. He's trying, on his small scale, to do this, but it's something that needs to be done at the national level and well beyond the formal sector. I don't want to go on all night, but I assure you, there are digital technologies available today that allow everyone to participate. Beyond the formal sector, will a system create institutional investors in Côte d'Ivoire? Does that... how do you... 10 minutes... not true capital... capital... is... you... between... and... and that difference is fundamental, and it means that every economic actor must seek to finance themselves with equity, not debt. And so I say, it's not a new idea. I've often recounted that we finalized the financing in '99 for the Riviera Marcory bridge. Maybe people forget, we laid the foundation stone in '99. We finalized it on December 15, '99, on the top floor of the building with 25 banks, everything... but it was... General Coulibaly who was there because I had asked the army pension fund to take the equity in the bridge because it was a perfect product with the toll to pay the pensions of soldiers and military personnel, and Coulibaly, who is a good mathematician, understood that right away. He said, 'Let's do it.' So these are things that... These are completely feasible in our economies. You look at Asia, that's what happened, and we can follow that path too. But in addition to pension funds, we also need a sovereign wealth fund, and I'm currently helping other African countries set them up. I can explain why it's important. But basically, when it comes to financing the economy, you shouldn't think in terms of debt; you should think in terms of long-term capital. You need to generate long-term capital in your economy, and debt comes on top of that. Once you have a good level of long-term capital, you use that to borrow. But borrowing when you don't have enough capital is catastrophic.
