"I love you, but I'm leaving," was the message from Bruno Le Maire. How long he'll be gone remains to be seen, reports Politico.
After a record-setting seven-year tenure as France's economy and finance minister, Le Maire on Thursday said goodbye to politics in front of a crowd of officials, ministers, lawmakers, entrepreneurs and journalists gathered in the courtyard of the ministry for the occasion.
He told journalists he will take up a teaching position in the idyllic lakeside Swiss city of Lausanne.
"After 22 years of loyal service, I'm going back to my first vocation, teaching ... this time in economics and geopolitics, to think about what tomorrow's economy might look like, how to decarbonize the economy, how to reduce inequalities," Le Maire said.
"I'm going to do this in Lausanne, at the Université de Lausanne, and I'll really enjoy meeting students and talking to them," he added.