Robert Schuman | |
---|---|
85th Prime Minister of France | |
In office 24 November 1947 – 26 July 1948 |
|
President | Vincent Auriol |
Preceded by | Paul Ramadier |
Succeeded by | André Marie |
In office 5 September 1948 – 11 September 1948 |
|
President | Vincent Auriol |
Preceded by | André Marie |
Succeeded by | Henri Queuille |
1st President of the European Parliamentary Assembly | |
In office 1958–1960 |
|
Preceded by | Hans Furler |
Succeeded by | Hans Furler |
Personal details | |
Born |
Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Robert Schuman 29 June 1886 Luxembourg City, Luxembourg |
Died | 4 September 1963 Scy-Chazelles, Lorraine, France |
(aged 77)
Political party | Popular Republican Movement |
Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Robert Schuman (French pronunciation: [ʁɔbɛʁ ʃuman]; 29 June 1886 – 4 September 1963) was a Luxembourg-born French statesman. Schuman was a Christian Democrat (MRP) and an independent political thinker and activist. Twice Prime Minister of France, a reformist Minister of Finance and a Foreign Minister, he was instrumental in building post-war European and trans-Atlantic institutions and was one of the founders of the European Union, the Council of Europe and NATO. The 1964–1965 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour.
Schuman was born in June 1886, in Clausen, Luxembourg, having his father's then German nationality. His father, Jean-Pierre Schuman (d.1900), who was a native of Lorraine and was born a Frenchman, became German when Lorraine was annexed by Germany in 1871, before he left to settle in Luxembourg, not far from his native village of Evrange. Schuman's mother (d. 1911) was a Luxembourger. Schuman's secondary schooling from 1896 to 1903 was at Athénée de Luxembourg, followed in 1904 by the Lycée impérial in Metz. From 1904 to 1910 he studied law, economics, political philosophy, theology and statistics at the Universities of Berlin, Munich, Bonn and Strasbourg, and received a law degree with the highest distinction from Strasbourg University. In 1912 Schuman set up practice as a lawyer in Metz. When war broke out in 1914 he was called up for the auxiliary troops by the German army in Metz but excused from military service on health grounds. From 1915 to 1918 he served in the administration of the Boulay district.