Jean Monnet, the inspirer of the Founding Fathers of Europe
Audio 48:30
Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman.
© European Union 2021 - Source EP
By: Daniel Desesquelle
51 mins
For a united Europe to emerge in the wake of the disaster of World War II, exceptional politicians were needed.
While the European cities were still under the bombs, they imagined the contours of a Europe at peace.
Their names have now somewhat vanished from our memory ... Alcide de Gasperi is Italian;
Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgian;
Konrad Adenauer, German and Robert Schuman, French.
They are called “The Founding Fathers of Europe”.
Publicity
They are the artisans of a continent reconciled first between the French and the Germans via a pooling of coal and steel, in other words raw materials which are made into tanks and cannons.
Six countries, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and France, 70 years ago, very exactly founded the ECSC, the European Coal and Steel Community. . first stage of a larger project called the European Union ...
But nothing would have been possible without Frenchman Jean Monnet.
He was never a minister, he was never even elected, but he was an indefatigable inspiration for the first steps in European construction.
For more information:
The website of the Maison de Jean Monnet in Bazoches sur Guyonne: here
With:
- Philippe Perchoc, analyst in the research service of
the European Parliament
- Corinna Franz, director of the
Konrad Adenauer House
Foundation
... Online from Bad Honnef-Rhöndorf
- Victoria Martin de la Torre,
author of
“Europe, a leap into the unknown, the founders of the European Union from 1948 to 1957”
at L'Harmattan.
Online from Brussels.
© Éditions L'Harmattan
With
Sasha Mitchell
of
Courrier International
.
© International Courier
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
France
French politics
European Union
History
On the same subject
France - Heritage Days
Heritage Days: Jean Monnet's house, founding place of Europe
France report
European elections: Jean Monnet's passionate wine merchant