Terme de Glossaire

A male French politician, considered as one of the founding fathers of European construction. Born a German in Luxemburg through a conjunction of family and historical happenstance, this Lorraine lawyer, educated across the Rhine at Strasburg, became French in 1918. Which is to say that he seemed predestined to consider borders as totally relative and surmountable boundaries. A member of parliament for Mosel from 1919 to 1940 he subsequently became a state undersecretary for refugees, and was then deported to Germany, from where he escaped. Several times a minister (MRP : Mouvement républicain populaire, Christian Democrat), notably Foreign Minister and President of the Council (Prime Minister) under the fourth French Republic, he became, along with Jean Monnet, an important promoter of European construction. He laid the foundations of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Defence Community (EDC), but the latter project was abandoned in the face of opposition from communists and Gaullists. Robert Schuman devoted the end of his life to the development of European institutions as President of the European Movement, and then the Parliamentary Assembly of Europe at Strasburg, from 1958-1960.