FranceWho was Robert Schuman?
Robert Schuman was born a German citizen in Luxembourg and grew up in Lorraine, becoming French when the region returned to France in 1919. A devout Catholic lawyer, he entered the French parliament and after the Second World War was a leader of the Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement. He served as finance minister, twice as prime minister and as foreign minister from 1948 to 1953. In 1940 he was arrested in Metz and interrogated by the Gestapo for protesting Nazi methods. On 9 May 1950 he presented the plan, drafted with Jean Monnet, that led to the European Coal and Steel Community, and in 1958 he presided over the first session of the European Parliamentary Assembly.
Political views
Proposed placing French and German coal and steel production under a common High Authority open to other European countries.
Source: robert-schuman.euArgued that pooling coal and steel would make war between France and Germany not merely unthinkable but materially impossible.
Source: robert-schuman.euDescribed the coal and steel pool as the first concrete foundation of a European federation indispensable to the preservation of peace.
Source: robert-schuman.euHeld that Europe would be built step by step through concrete achievements that create solidarity.
Source: european-union.europa.euWas a key negotiator of the Council of Europe, the Marshall Plan and NATO.
Source: european-union.europa.euGrounded his politics in Christian democratic principles; the Catholic Church declared him venerable in 2021.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAs prime minister in 1947-1948 maintained parliamentary stability during a wave of revolutionary strikes.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Legacy
Schuman is widely honored as a founding father of the European Union, and 9 May is celebrated as Europe Day. Supporters see his declaration as the start of lasting Franco-German reconciliation. Gaullists and communists at the time opposed the supranational High Authority as a loss of national sovereignty, and later critics of the EU have argued that the integration method he launched gave too much power to unelected institutions.
In their words
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.