As President of the European Central Bank, it is an honour to speak in a nation that has done so much to promote and further the cause of European integration. It was exactly 300 years ago, in 1713, that the Abbé de Saint-Pierre presented his Project for Perpetual Peace, one of the first visions for a union between European nations.
That this vision emerged into reality is thanks in large part to generations of French thinkers and pioneers, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, and Aristide Briand. It is also thanks to the makers of the modern European Union like Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet, and Jacques Delors.