French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech on the European Union in the amphitheater of the Sorbonne University in Paris on September 26, 2017 | Pool photo by Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images 5 takeaways from Macron’s big speech on Europe’s future The French president tripled down on his long-standing Europhile commitments.

PARIS — Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday reprised his role as the only EU national leader still daring to defend greater European integration.

The opening words of a speech the French president gave at Paris' Sorbonne University set the tone: “I came to talk to you about Europe. Some will say: 'Again?' They’d better get used to it.”

Macron then provided an ambitious and detailed reform agenda — which he acknowledged would take most of the next decade to achieve — and called on Germany to enter into a “partnership” with France to lead its implementation.

Speaking in front of an audience of European students in a vast, wood-paneled amphitheater in Paris' oldest university, his address included a long list of proposals he hopes will be discussed in popular “democratic conventions” in member countries next year, then debated during the campaign for the European Parliament election in 2019.

Here are the main takeaways from the speech:

1. The unreformed European

Macron didn’t hesitate to triple down on his long-standing Europhile commitments, laying the blame for Euroskepticism at the door of leaders he criticized as too guarded to confront their own public opinions and lay out a clear vision. “Europe is also an idea,” he said, foreshadowing the criticism his speech might meet in other European capitals. “Some will tell you it’s not the right moment. But it’s never the right moment.”

Macron, however, was at pains to insist that his vision wasn’t limited to lofty ideals detached from Europe’s problems. He put “sovereignty” at the head of the three themes he said Europe should focus on in its next stage of evolution (the other two being “union” and “democracy”). And “security” — against terrorism and in defense matters — is the first thing Europe has to repair, he said.

Macron seemed to take on the mantle of past French presidents such as Charles De Gaulle and François Mitterrand, who saw Europe as the vehicle that would one day replace France’s diminishing power in world affairs. Macron sees Europe as gradually taking over more defense responsibilities because of the U.S.’ diminishing influence and fighting back against China in trade matters. “Only Europe can give us some capacity for action in today’s world,” he said.

2. A call to Germany

Macron made it clear that he wanted France and Germany to lead the major reform push for Europe, inviting renewed criticism that his approach is dismissive of smaller countries’ interests. His proposal that the future European Commission be limited to 15 members (versus 28 today) will only fuel those fears.

Macron's chosen method to convince German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to present his plan as something that needs further, ample debate and his proposals as mere suggestions.

Even then, the sheer magnitude of his plan runs the risk of creating shock and awe in Berlin and worrying the political parties that see France as a country governed by fiscal insouciance and periodic reliance on Germany’s coffers.

Macron’s speech was originally planned as mostly detailing his eurozone proposals, and his intervention two days after the Bundestag election was criticized for poor timing.

In the end, the monetary union was only a small part of the speech. Macron reiterated his idea that the eurozone should have a common budget, but he didn’t ask for much more. And the size of the budget he implied (financed by current corporate taxes) and the timetable (only once they have been harmonized at the eurozone level) suggest a modest, long process. For Macron, Germany's participation in his European vision seems more important for now than its acquiescence to his eurozone reform plans.

3. Weaving a laundry list into poetry

Along with his grand ideas of where he sees Europe heading, Macron wanted to suggest concrete proposals to illustrate what he means in different fields of European policies. That forced him into the difficult task of manipulating poetry and prose, weaving a laundry list of measures into a speech replete with literary references, flights of lyricism, and punchy soundbites.

That also meant piling up initiatives either new, old, or just painted-over. He mentioned the creation of a European Intelligence Agency, a carbon tax levied at the EU’s borders, a revival of the currently near-dead discussions on a financial transaction tax (FTT), a new copyright regime for digital works, the eurozone budget, a “European agency for disruptive innovation,” a determined effort to push high school and college students to study in other EU countries, and the creation of “real European universities” giving out European diplomas.

The risk is that with such detail, the discussions to come among the 27 remaining EU members after Brexit will get bogged down in endless debates, while creating a massive overload for the European agenda for years to come. Striking in the speech was the lack of a sense of hierarchy among all the different projects.

4. Counting on the vanguard

Macron has been criticized in the past for his advocacy of a “multispeed” EU, where countries agreeing on specific reforms might not have to wait for wider consensus to move ahead. He tried to put a positive spin on his idea by insisting that building a “strong and efficient core” would benefit those who might or could only join at a later stage.

Macron has placed himself in the position of being forced to move forward.

But that approach obviously can’t be applied to eurozone reform, which will no doubt constitute the heart of the EU discussion in months to come and be the main bone of contention with Germany. There cannot be a multispeed eurozone, and that limits the possibility of flexibility that Macron advocates. It is inconceivable, for example, for some eurozone members to gang up to create a common budget without Germany.

What Macron seems to mean instead is that he sees the eurozone as core Europe. Others may well join at a later stage, but there's no need to wait for them.

Still, Macron’s insistence that a renewed Franco-German “partnership” will serve as the motor driving the EU forward will be seen by others as another attempt to dismiss their concerns. That may present a political obstacle to Macron's grand design.

5. Leaning left on Europe

Macron chose the opportunity of his European speech to get back in touch with his inner socialist. His repeated insistence that the EU should better “protect” its citizens against social or trade dumping, create a “solidarity fund,” boost its budget for overseas aid, and lead a determined action against global warming seemed straight from the pages of any center-left or social democratic party in Europe.

His proposal to revive the debate about the FTT similarly will play well among voters from the left. And his calls for more public investment — financed by the eurozone budget — on the model of a major effort he just launched in France, allow him to shed the image of an austerity advocate he took on in his first months in office.

Appearing like a bold leader with a European vision — not something that could be said of any other French president in the last quarter of a century — also allows him to appeal to the liberal, progressive electorate that has been disoriented by some of his domestic policy choices.

Having now staked his domestic and foreign political reputation on this sweeping European agenda, Macron has placed himself in the position of being forced to move forward. He pledged that France would be open to any form of discussion and compromise, provided that EU governments all agree on the goal.

“I don’t have red lines," he said. "I only have horizons.”