Hello everybody, Good evening
I am very very happy to be speaking to you this evening to adjourn this third Women's Forum.
What is the bottom line of these three days?
What are we taking home with us? For our businesses, for our minds?
First, and in any case for me, emotion
Emotion and incredible encounters
Emotion and joy
And this moves me, very much.
What does one get out of a gathering like this?
Well, the first thing is an impression of movement; we're on the road.
Calmly and serenely, but also firmly and with determination, on the road for women who want change.
And women are changing.
I said to someone yesterday: feminism has opened doors.
Today, we have another form of feminism, the women's road!
And here are some facts for this third edition:
No more programs
No more pens
No more hotel rooms!
Because you know the real figures: more than one thousand three hundred people in three days.
Just think: we have doubled our participation in three years.
More and more men, happy and proud to be here.
Because they too know that it is together that we are going to build tomorrow's new society.
It is together that business is going to change,
together that the political system will advance,
together that this trust we have talked about so much here will move the parameters, change the frontiers, push back the limits.
The memory of these women who have honored us with their presence this year will remain with me for a long time.
Thank you May Chidiac for being with us. You are the incarnation of political courage. You have moved me to tears and I honor your combat of going back to your job as journalist and your life as a woman of the world.
Thank you Phumzile Mlambo Ngeuka, Vice-President of South Africa. You have made it crystal clear to us that if women decided not to get up in the morning, even for one day, the earth would stop moving.
These women move us, but beyond that, they make us go out of our own frontiers, they make us learn, and we really need to know that here. The world and particularly that of women, is hard, violent, a world of non-rights and non-law, where women can't even express themselves.
That is why the Women's Forum exists and must exist because, like me, you know that in an ideal world, a Women's Forum should not even exist.
We have a duty to speak. We have a duty to bring these women from the whole world here so they can show us the way. So they can tell their stories and thus save the young generation from reproducing the same old patterns. I created the Women's Forum concept so that the young generation can be our relay.
And you, the many many companies here today, and you, our business leaders, we all carry the responsibility for change.
Don't wait for governments to do something for us but be active, proactive, be the actors of change.
Prepare our companies to welcome the young generation; change our companies to welcome them.
How? It's true that nothing is more difficult than change, and change is indispensable if we want the best, the best graduates, the most motivated, the best mothers, in fact, the best women: Women who don't want meetings at 6 o'clock in the evening, who don't want a business trip on Friday.
It's true that this is complicated. But when you know what women bring to business, adaptation and change are no longer a problem. They are emergencies.
Have you heard the results of the three studies?
Yes, businesses where women are most strongly represented at board or top-management level are also the companies that perform best.
Yes, the contribution of women to their countries' economic life is measurable and immense.
Yes, if there were more women in top-level jobs there would be less corruption in the world.
When it is understood that we, women, are purely and simply determined to play our complete role of women, of leaders, and that businesses have to be ready for us, that means we are on the road to parity, without needing a law to make it happen.
You want facts about what a forum can produce:
A worldwide prize for women entrepreneurs with Cartier;
A worldwide contest to identify the most outstanding project for girls' education;
An appeal to young girls in science and technology: one hundred and forty girls were here with us yesterday;
The presence of exemplary women, models for all of us, who make the world move around them and us, and a worldwide selection of Rising Talents: twenty girls are here this year. Twenty girls who got the big picture here at this forum, to think and act globally. They identify with these issues of trust and confidence. They understand how each of us must be proactive, positive and progressive. One opportunity leads to another and each opportunity must be seized.
This is what our Forum is for:
To push back the limits
To be aware that it is together that we will build a different world.
And I know that this will happen
And with you.
I need you now.
I appeal to you, women and men, here today.
Help us identify women's best projects for tomorrow.
Help us develop these projects – you women, you partners, our true ambassadors of change.
Be with us, join us in this enterprise.
Let us know quickly because we need you
In conclusion, I'd like to announce two or three things:
Look at our blog – it captures the ambiance, the feeling, your suggestions, questions and challenge.
Be ready for our multi media platform, beginning next year, with a panoply of services like the online directory, the update of all the actions and activities of our partners and participants, and the many things the Women's Forum can offer on the net.
We haven't wanted, at the Women's Forum, just to describe, explain or analyse; we want to change with concrete, measurable acts and projects.
I want again to honor the Chinese delegation for the strength of its presence and participation. We will be present in Asia every year, and I am inviting you now to mark your agendas with the first Asia Women's Forum in Shanghai, May fifteenth to seventeenth, two thousand eight.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends. I am full of hope and confidence in closing this third Women's Forum.
