Jean Monnet

Jean Monnet was born in 1888 in Cognac into a family of brandy merchants. Between 1904 and 1914, he made various trips to the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States on behalf of J.-G. Monnet & Co.

During the First World War, he contributed to the creation of a pool of ships and supplies of raw materials, which made it possible to overcome the danger of submarine warfare in 1917.

In 1919, he became Deputy Secretary General of the League of Nations. He returned to Cognac in 1923, where he worked to modernize his father’s Cognac firm. From 1926 to 1938, he carried out numerous mandates as an economic and financial advisor, notably in China. In 1929, he met his wife Silvia de Bondini. They married in 1934 in Moscow and had two daughters.

In 1938, he went on a mission to the United States to purchase fighter aircraft for France. In June 1940, Monnet was in London and contributed strongly to the proposal for a Declaration of Union between the British Empire and the French Empire. Between 1940 and 1943, he also contributed to President Roosevelt’s Victory Program. In 1943, he was one of the members of the French Committee for National Liberation in Algiers, alongside General Giraud and General de Gaulle.

In 1945, he returned to France and was appointed Commissioner of Planning by De Gaulle. In this role, his mission is to coordinate the reconstruction and modernization of France. In 1950, he conceived the draft of the Robert Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, which launched the process of European integration. In 1951, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed the Treaty of Paris establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The ECSC High Authority moved to Luxembourg in August 1952 and Jean Monnet was its first President. The opening of the common market for coal and steel took place on 30 April 1953.

In 1954, the French Parliament rejected the European Defence Community (EDC). In response, Monnet resigned from the High Authority in 1955 and founded the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. In 1957, the Treaties of Rome were signed.

In 1963, Monnet was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1975, he retired to his house in Houjarray to write his Memoirs, which were published in 1976. That same year, he was awarded the diploma of Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European Council.

He died in March 1979 at the age of 90 and his ashes were transferred to the Paris Pantheon in 1988.

Read excerpts from Jean Monnet’s Memoirs (in French only)

Copyright photo : 1965, Yousuf Karsh.