We are standing by the demand for a 40-hour week.

If (the union) continues to insist on short working time, there will be more privatization.

One can't sign every contract no matter how bad it may be for the state's budgets.

We won't cut unemployment by only employing people in the public sector.

At age eleven, I became a member of the circulating library of my home town. From there on I was rarely seen outside but was reading two to four books per week, the subjects ranging from archaeology over ethnology and geography to zoology. Needless to say that I did not do much homework.

I was born in Ludwigsburg, Wuerttemberg, in the southwestern part of the Federal Republic of Germany on July 18, 1948, as the elder son of Karl and Frieda Michel. My ancestors lived in that area for generations, mainly as farmers.