“This recreation of Portugal is our first obligation in this new cycle of our history, 50 years after we achieved democracy and freedom,” said the head of state at the military ceremony commemorating 10 June, in Lagos, Algarve.

In his last speech as President of the Republic on Portugal Day, Camões Day and Portuguese Communities Day, which lasted about 10 minutes, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa chose to recall the past.

“But remembering is also recreating. We have a duty to recreate ourselves, to surpass ourselves, to take better care of our people, so that they are more numerous, better educated, more attracted to staying in this homeland made up of a rectangle and two archipelagos, if they want to stay, or to leave and return, and never lose their longing for the land, if they want to leave,” he argued.

According to the President of the Republic, it is necessary to “take care of more than can and should be done, produced, innovated, invested, exported and, above all, provided to those who live there.”

Credits: Lusa;

“Take care of those who have been left behind or are being left behind. There are always between two and three million of them, and there have been many for a long time, regime after regime, situation after situation, intolerably many, too many,” he continued, condemning the poverty that persists in the country.

The head of state and supreme commander of the Armed Forces also called for care to be taken of Portuguese emigrants, “compatriots who every day create Portugal all over the world”, and “of the sea, of the oceans.”

“We must nurture our fraternity with the peoples and states that, like us, speak Portuguese and make Portuguese a great world language. We must nurture our belonging to a united, open Europe that believes in human values, dignity, respect for people, their rights and duties, and their cultural and life diversity,” he added.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa ended his last speech as President of the Republic on the 10 June bank holiday with a tribute to the military and the former head of state, General Ramalho Eanes, whom he decorated.

The President of the Republic also stated that, when he leaves office, he will cease to intervene politically, but that he intends to be present at all official ceremonies as former head of state.