Jean Monnet

Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet was a French political economist and diplomat. An influential supporter of European unity, he is considered as one of the founding fathers of the European Union. He was a European executive body, as President of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, and thus he is known as the Father of Europe. Never elected to public office, Monnet worked behind the scenes of American and European governments as a wellconnected pragmatic internationalist. He was named patron of the 19801981 academic year at the College of Europe, in honour of his accomplishments.

Monnet was born in Cognac, a commune in the department of Charente in France, into a family of cognac merchants. At the age of sixteen, he abandoned his university entrance examinations part way through and moved to the United Kingdom, where he spent several years in London with Mr. Chaplin, an agent of his fathers company. Subsequently, he traveled widely to Scandinavia, Russia, Egypt, Canada, and the United States for the family business.

Source: Wikipedia