Character Catalog

France's first five-year economic reconstruction plan after the war, it enabled the modernization of French industry, transport, and energy. Monnet served as its Commissioner General and chief architect.

Monnet conceived and drafted the plan proposing the pooling of French and German coal and steel, presented by Minister Schuman on 9 May 1950. The ECSC, the first European supranational body, was its direct result.

Monnet was the first president of the ECSC High Authority in Luxembourg, the first supranational institution in European history. He resigned to devote himself to a more ambitious political integration project.

Organisation founded by Monnet bringing together political parties and trade unions from member countries around the European federal project. This committee played a decisive role in relaunching integration after the failure of the EDC.

Autobiographical work in which Monnet traces his journey and his vision of European construction. It is a major historical source on the behind-the-scenes story of the founding of European institutions.

I have never doubted that the unity of the European peoples was the only way to overcome the conflicts that had torn our continent apart. The sovereign nations of the past are no longer able to ensure their own protection or to control their development.

Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan: it will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity.

The pooling of coal and steel production will immediately ensure the establishment of common foundations for economic development, the first step towards the European Federation.

We are not forming coalitions of states, we are uniting people. What we are doing is not an alliance, it is the beginning of a peaceful revolution of minds.

Jean Monnet's birthplace, where his family ran a cognac trading house. It was here that he learned the art of commerce and international negotiation from an early age.

Jean Monnet's country house in the Rambouillet Forest, where he drafted the Schuman Plan and received the world's greatest leaders for decades. This discreet residence is now a listed historic monument.

The city where Monnet established the High Authority of the ECSC in 1952 and served as its first president. Luxembourg thus became the first capital of a supranational European institution.

The city where Monnet spent many years during World War II, working with Roosevelt to organize Allied military production. His influence in Washington was decisive in securing the Allied victory.

The seat of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where Robert Schuman announced on May 9, 1950 the plan conceived by Monnet. This site symbolizes the passage of Monnet's idea into the official declaration that founded Europe.

Monnet worked extensively by telephone, weaving a network of transatlantic relationships with American, British, and European leaders. It was one of his favourite tools of persuasion, complementing his famous one-on-one meetings.

Monnet drafted his founding texts himself, covering countless pages with concise notes and pithy formulas. His collaborators recall that he could rewrite the same paragraph dozens of times to sharpen its clarity.

A seasoned traveller, Monnet crossed the Atlantic dozens of times during and after the wars. His briefcase symbolises the life of a behind-the-scenes operator moving between Paris, London, and Washington to negotiate in secret.

Monnet regularly used geographical and economic maps to illustrate his integration projects and visualise the flows of coal and steel between nations. The map of Europe was a central working tool in his meetings.

Originally from Cognac, Monnet first learned international trade as a teenager selling his family's cognac in England and Canada. The brandy from his home region represents his origins and his formation as a negotiator.

The Monnet Plan (1946–1952) was embodied in thick technocratic reports planning the economic modernisation of France. These documents symbolise his pragmatic and concrete approach to reconstruction.