The Salon de l'Horloge, Where the Schuman Declaration Was Read
The clock room at the Quai d'Orsay, where Robert Schuman read the declaration of 9 May 1950 proposing that French and German coal and steel be placed under a common authority. The photograph is modern; the room is the one.
The proposal was drafted by Jean Monnet's team and kept from all but a handful of ministers until the morning it was announced, partly so that the French cabinet could not dilute it. Its argument was deliberately narrow and deliberately practical: put the industries of war under joint control and war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable but materially impossible. The Coal and Steel Community followed in 1951 and everything else grew from it. See the Schuman Plan and the birth of European economic cooperation.
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