On 26 January 1977, a letter was published by the leading intellectuals of the day in the French newspaper Le Monde. In 2013 the paedophile Gabriel Matzneff claimed the credit for drafting it and securing the signatories.

Open Letter published in Le Monde in 1977​

An English Translation:

"On January 27, 28, and 29, Bernard Dejager, Jean-Claude Gallien, and Jean Burckhardt will be tried before the cour d'assises des Yvelines for lascivious acts with a minor of less than 15 years of age. Arrested in autumn of 1973, it is for more than three years now that they remain in remand. Only Bernard Dejager has recently benefited from the presumption of innocence. Such a long time in remand to investigate a simple 'vice' affair, where the children have not been the victims of the slightest violence, but have to the contrary testified before the examining magistrates that they consented - although the law at present denies them their right to consent - such a long time in remand we do consider scandalous in itself.

Today they risk to be sentenced to a long prison term either for having had sexual relations with minors, boys as well as girls, or for having encouraged and taken photographs of their sexual plays. We believe that there is an incongruity between the designation as a 'crime' which serves to legitimize such a severity, and the facts themselves; even more so between the antiquated law and the reality of everyday life in a society which tends to know about the sexuality of children and adolescents (thirteen-year-olds are given the pill, for doing what?).

French law contradicts itself if it recognises a capacity for judgement in thirteen and fourteen year olds, so a to be able to try and sentence them, but denies them the same capability with respect to their emotional and sexual life. Three years for caresses and kisses are enough. We would not understand if on January the 29th, Dejager, Gallien, and Burckardt would not be freed."

This letter was signed by nearly 70 people, including Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gilles & Fanny Deleuze, Felix Guattari, the psychologist & psychotherapist Michel Bon, the psychiatrist Dr Maurice Erne, the psychiatrist Dr Pierette Garrou, the psychologist & psychoanalyst Dr Claire Gellman, the psychiatrist Dr Robert Gellman, the Queer Theory theorist Guy Hocquenghem, the co-founder of Medicines Sans Frontiers Bernard Kouchner, the philosopher and sociologist Jean-Francois Lyotard, the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr Bernard Muldworf, the philosopher Francois Regnault, the psychologist Claude Revault d'Allonnes, the philosopher Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, the philosopher Rene Scherer, and the psychiatrist Helene Vedrines, amongst others.

Liberte, egalite, fraternite

I trust you're as horrified to read this as I was. So: some context. In 1977 French 'intellectuals' were riding the wave of the French revolution. Liberte, egalite, fraternite were the catch-cries.

They were railing against the institutions that had gained too much power rebuilding the world after the Second World War. They were fighting against sexual repression, they were fighting for gay rights, for access to contraception, and against what they believed to be the State's interference in their sex lives.

Much of their work was not in vain. In their naivete though, they threw the baby out with the bath water on this one. And I will never forgive them for it. These ideas have permeated modern culture and continue to be used in online forums to justify paedophilia to this day. I worry that such ideas are perhaps why we have examples of some current existential practitioners, and certainly not the vast majority of our male existential therapeutic members (who I've no doubt would be equally alarmed), causing harm to clients by their lack of concern over sexual assaults in the last two editions of the Hermeneutic Circular.

But you know what, I'm sick of hearing the excuses of people who make these argumentative mistakes. I'm sick of hearing excuses for paedophiles. I'm sick of hearing about society's apathy over sexual misconduct. I'm sick of everyone making sense of the perpetrators. So I'm going to talk about a couple of the victims.

The victims

Vanessa Springora was the 14 year old victim of Gabriel Matzneff, who was aged 49 at the time. In January 2020 she published a book called Le consentement (Consent).

Lily Dunn, in her outstanding essay 'Idealising the Predator' captures what Springora and many other young survivors of childhood and adolescent sexual assault endure when she states, "One of the most shocking passages in Springora's book describes the first time Matzneff attempts to make love to her, and her body involuntarily rejects him '[w]ith an instinctive reflex, my thighs jammed tight together' - clearly telling her something that her emotions were not yet fully aware of. Instead of respecting this obvious sign - 'I howled with pain before he even touched me' - he turned her over. 'That is how I lost the first part of my virginity,' she writes. 'Just like a little boy, he whispered to me in a soft voice.'"

Dunn agives voice to another victim when she writes, "A decade before meeting Springora, he'd had a three-year relationship with Francesca Gee, beginning when she was 15 years old, who, some years later, came across an illustration based on a photograph of herself on the cover of one of Matzneff's novels, lvre du vin perdu (drunk on lost wine), strolling by a bookshop window. The novel follows a middle-aged man Nil and his seductions of 15 year old girls, and trips to Manila where he pays to have sex with 11 year old boys. For four decades, with no regard for her or attempt to obtain her consent, Gee's image was used to promote the kind of abusive relationships for which Matzneff is now being held to account."

THIS is what the French 'intellectuals' supported.

Educating students in existential therapy training

I assume you're wondering what my point in telling you all of this is by now? It's quite simple really.

I want... No. Let me rephrase that. I DEMAND that existential philosophy's ignorant collusion with paedophilia is taught alongside the ideas of these existential philosophers in every single training institute associated with existential ideas.

It is sheer hypocrisy on the part of the worldwide existential therapeutic community if Heidegger's ugly antisemitism is taught in conjunction with his works, but the support for paedophilia by Sartre, De Beauvoir, Deleuze and Guattari, is not taught alongside theirs, together with the harm that their arguments condoned. Victims of sexual assault deserve better from us.

If you would like to add your name to this demand that all tertiary courses that teach the works of Sartre, De Beauvoir, Deleuze and Guattari, also include their collusion with paedophilia as a part of the course then please add your name to this petition.