François Fontaine (20 December 1917 – 23 March 1996) was a French civil servant and writer. Fontaine was long associated with

Jean Monnet Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet (; 9 November 1888 – 16 March 1979) was a French civil servant, entrepreneur, diplomat, financier, administrator, and political visionary. An influential supporter of European unity, he is considered one of the ...

, with whom he started working in 1945 at the Commissariat général du Plan, and with the early build-up of European institutions. In the early 1970s while working at the

European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...

office in Paris, he drafted most of the text of Monnet's ''Memoirs'' published by

Fayard Fayard (complete name: ''Librairie Arthème Fayard'') is a French Paris-based publishing house established in 1857. Fayard is controlled by Hachette Livre. In 1999, Éditions Pauvert became part of Fayard. Claude Durand was director of Fayard ...

in 1976, even as Monnet himself retained ultimate control. The English translation by

Richard Mayne Sir Richard Mayne KCB (27 November 1796 – 26 December 1868) was a barrister and the joint first Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the head of the London Metropolitan Police (1829–1868). With an incumbency of 39 years, he was a ...

was published by Doubleday in 1978. After Monnet's Memoirs were published, Fontaine moved on to writing successful historical novels. He won the ''Prix Méditerranee'' in 1987 for his book '' Blandine de Lyon''.Bio
/ref> His son Pascal (born 1948) also worked with Monnet on historical research in the early 1970s and was involved in the preparation of the ''Memoirs'' as well. He later wrote a biography of Monnet on his own, published in 1988 as ''L'Inspirateur'' and in an expanded version in 2013 as ''Jean Monnet, Actualité d'un bâtisseur de l'Europe unie''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fontaine, François category:French writers 1917 births 1996 deaths