Have you read “The Adventures of Kontiki”? This is a question Jean Monnet tended to ask people, who were intrigued when they saw a photo of the famous boat on the desk of the founder of the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. Jacques Rabier, honorary director general of information at the European Commission, who used to work with Jean Monnet and remained close to him right until the end, shared this memory at a conference on the work, methods, action and influence of the Action Committee for the United States of Europe, organised by the Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe at Lausanne University on 11 and 12 September. Rabier explained that the adventures of this group of happy Norwegians was seen by Jean Monnet as a symbol of the European project. Like Europe, the sailors set off on their adventures aware that they could not turn around and come back. Jacques Rabier describes Jean Monnet, due to some areas of his approach, as a “political navigator, knowing how to sail with the wind, even when it blows against him". Rabier said that Monnet was also endowed with an extremely high ability to be self-critical and to trust. “His idea of human relationships was very different from that which prevails in political relationships.” Pascal Fontaine, who used to work of the Action Committee and wrote the book “Le Comité d'Action pour les États-Unis d'Europe de Jean Monnet,” commented that Jean Monnet was a kind of “post-modern humanist,” who had had the intuition ahead of its time of what could be achieved through use of “soft power” and seeking the common good which, once found, had to be organised with the “almost defining voluntarism” that was one of Jean Monnet's characteristics. Armed with this “positive fatalism”, Monnet did not fear crises. Pascal Fontaine explained that “he saw everything, even obstacles, as resources”. (L.G./transl.fl)