PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron offered an ambitious vision for European renewal on Tuesday, calling for the EU to work more closely on defence and immigration and for the euro zone to have its own budget, ideas he may struggle to implement.
In a nearly two-hour speech delivered two days after the German election in which Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU bloc scored its worst result since 1949, limiting her freedom to manoeuvre on Europe, the 39-year-old French president held little back in terms of sweep, self-assurance and aspiration.