François Duchêne
Born in London to a French-speaking Swiss father and a French mother, Louis-François Duchêne (1927-2005) attended Colet Court and St Paul’s schools (1940-44) and graduated from the London School of Economics in 1947. During national service, he was sent to Austria as a lieutenant in intelligence. His first job was as lead writer for the Manchester Guardian (1949-52). After reading his articles on the economic and political challenges of a continent ruined by World War II, Jean Monnet invited the 25-year-old Duchêne to join him in Luxembourg to plan the new Europe at the high authority of the European Coal and Steel Community. Duchêne went to Paris in 1955 with Monnet who was preparing the next stage of the EU, working until 1958 as a correspondent for the Economist and adviser to Monnet’s core team. In 1958, Duchêne became director of Monnet’s private office at the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. In 1959 he suffered a nervous breakdown and spent several months in a Swiss sanatorium.
In 1963, Duchêne moved to Brighton, where he went back to work for the Economist. He was a Ford Foundation fellow (1967-69), director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (1969-74) and professor and director of the newly formed Centre for European Research at Sussex University (1974-84). Duchêne is the author of The Case of the Helmeted Airman: A Study of W.H. Auden’s Poetry (1972) and Jean Monnet: The First Statesman of Interdependence (1994) and edited several other books.
Click on the cover for details about the eBook:
