Jean Monnet – Revisiting the Past of the EU for Better Understanding the Present

Abstract

This article presents some key-aspects of the political vision of Monnet, as one of the founding fathers of EU, but also as an original and under evaluated thinker. The biographic descriptions present Monnet as a French businessman, a banker, a diplomat, a politician, and a cosmopolitan personality. His name is related to the conception of the Schuman Declaration, which in May 1950 invited the occidental countries to start the European project. Some specialists appreciate his contribution as decisive for the first European community, for the post-war international bipolar order; others tend to reveal the myth build on his image, as a legitimating European myth.  But we consider that Monnet’s political ideas have a theoretical signification and continue to be valuable today, even if the large world order context is different. One can interrogate the current European Union entity by the lens of the political and sociological ideas of Monnet on classical items such social change, solidarity, community, international relations, revealing that the past could help to explain or interpret the new challenges.