CAHORS (France): Former French minister Maurice Faure, the last surviving signatory of the Treaty of Rome which paved the way for European integration, died on Thursday aged 92.

A former Resistance fighter during World War II, Faure was deputy foreign minister when the pathbreaking 1957 treaty was signed.

The Treaty gave birth to what was to become the six-nation European Economic Community and later evolve into today's 28-member European Union.

Faure died peacefully at his home in Cahors, southeastern France, the region where he was born.

He served as mayor in the historic town for 25 years. Faure set a record by becoming France's youngest interior minister at the age of 36 although he only served for a few days in May 1958. He served later as justice minister.

As a veteran of World War II, he remained committed to the cause of a Europe united in a way that would make a rerun of that conflict's horrors impossible.—AFP