A New French Edition of the Ventotene Manifesto

Michel Theys
Editorialist of the daily bulletin Agence Europe

A. Spinelli and E. Rossi
Le Manifeste de Ventotene. Projet d’un Manifeste et autres textes (1941-1947), ed. by J.-F. Billion and J.-L. Prevel, Presse fédéraliste,‘Textes fédéralistes’ series, No. 14, Lyon, 2017, 343 pp.

Longstanding French federalists with unwavering enthusiasm, Jean-Francis Billion and Jean-Luc Prevel examine in these pages the Manifesto drawn up by Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi when, in 1941, they were relegated to the island of Ventotene by the Italian fascist regime. As far as the authors are concerned, this is not simply an act of remembrance, because the best-known document of the Resistance ‘illustrates the gap between the political values of liberalism, socialism and democracy and the strategic choices made by national political classes.’ In this epoch in which nationalist posturing is flourishing again along with calls for a return to national sovereignty, it is highly topical and gives good reasons for standing up to the old demons. To this historical appeal for a ‘free and united Europe,’ the compilers add other enlightening documents, such as the preface by Eugenio Colorni to the 1944 edition of the Manifesto, an introduction to Altiero Spinelli by Lucio Levi, and various documents written by Spinelli himself between 1942 and 1947. (m. t.)