PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Good afternoon, everybody.  I want to begin by thanking my friend, President Sarkozy, for his leadership and his hospitality.  And I want to thank the people of Cannes for this extraordinary setting.

Over the past two years, those of us in the G20 have worked together to rescue the global economy, to avert another depression, and to put us on the path to recovery.  But we came to Cannes with no illusions.  The recovery has been fragile.  And since our last meeting in Seoul we’ve experienced a number of new shocks -- disruptions in oil supplies, the tragic tsunami in Japan, and the financial crisis in Europe.

As a result, advanced economies, including the United States are growing and creating jobs, but not nearly fast enough.  Emerging economies have started to slow.  Global demand is weakening.  Around the world, hundreds of millions of people are unemployed, or underemployed.  Put simply, the world faces challenges that put our economic recovery at risk.

So the central question coming into Cannes was this:  Could the world’s largest economies confront this challenge squarely -- understanding that these problems will not be solved overnight, could we make progress?  After two days of very substantive（有实质的，大量的） discussions I can say that we’ve come together and made important progress to put our economic recoveries on a firmer footing.

With respect to Europe, we came to Cannes to discuss with our European friends how they will move forward and build upon the plan they agreed to last week to resolve this crisis.  Events in Greece over the past 24 hours have underscored the importance of implementing the plan, fully and as quickly as possible.

Having heard from our European partners over the past two days, I am confidence that Europe has the capacity to meet this challenge.  I know it isn’t easy, but what is absolutely critical, and what the world looks for in moments such as this, is action.

That’s how we confronted our financial crisis in the United States -- having our banks submit to stress tests that were rigorous（严格的） , increasing capital buffers, and passing the strongest financial reforms since the Great Depression.  None of that was easy, and it certainly wasn’t always popular.  But we did what was necessary to address the crisis, put ourselves on a stronger footing, and help rescue the global economy.

And that’s the challenge that Europe now faces.  Make no mistake, there's more hard work ahead and more difficult choices to make.  But our European partners have laid a foundation on which to build, and it has all the elements needed for success:  a credible firewall to prevent the crisis from spreading, strengthening European banks, charting a sustainable path for Greece, and confronting the structural issues that are at the heart of the current crisis.

And here in Cannes we’ve moved the ball forward.  Europe remains on track to implement a sustainable path for Greece.  Italy has agreed to a monitoring program with the IMF -- in fact, invited it.  Tools have been identified that will better enable the world to support European action.  And European finance ministers will carry this work forward next week.

All of us have an enormous interest in Europe's success, and all of us will be affected if Europe is not growing -- and that certainly includes the United States, which counts Europe as our largest trading partner.  If Europe isn't growing, it's harder for us to do what we need to do for the American people:  creating jobs, lifting up the middle class, and putting our fiscal house in order.  And that's why I've made it clear that the United States will continue to do our part to support our European partners as they work to resolve this crisis.

More broadly, we agreed to stay focused on jobs and growth with an action plan in which each nation does its part.  In the United States, we recognize, as the world's largest economy, the most important thing we can do for global growth is to get our own economy growing faster.  Back home, we're fighting for the American Jobs Act, which will put people back to work, even as we meet our responsibilities to reduce our deficit in the coming years.

We also made progress here in Cannes on our rebalancing agenda.  In an important step forward, countries with large surpluses（剩余） and export-oriented countries agreed to take additional steps to support growth and boost demand in their own countries. In addition, we welcome China's determination to increase the flexibility of the RMB.  This is something we've been calling for for some time, and it will be a critical step in boosting growth.

Finally, we also made progress across a range of challenges to our shared prosperity.  Following our reforms in the United States, the G20 adopted an unprecedented set of high-level financial reforms to prevent a crisis in the future.  We agreed to keep phasing out fossil fuel subsidies（补贴，津贴） -- perhaps the single-most important step we can take in the near term to fight climate change and create clean-energy economies.

And even as our countries work to save lives from the drought and terrible famine（饥荒） in the Horn of Africa, we agreed on the need to mobilize new resources to support the development that lifts nations out of poverty.

So, again, I want to thank President Sarkozy and our French hosts for a productive summit.  I want to thank my fellow leaders for their partnership and for the progress we've made to create the jobs and prosperity that our people deserve.