Bill to open marriage to couples of the same sex

Jacques-Alain Miller

[...]I would like to tell you how I, as a psychoanalyst, came to take sides on this bill. I was as surprised as anyone; just a short while before, I had been deter- mined not to get mixed up in it, feelings were running too high. It is not for psychoanalysis to be rubbing salt in the wounds. Nevertheless, my annoyance was growing, seeing certain colleagues lobby staunchly against this text in the name of psy- choanalysis, and often alongside representatives of the religions. The catalyst for my involvement was an email I received from a journalist from the Nouvel Observateur, Eric Aeschimann, whom I had never met, except maybe in the courtyard at École Normale Supérieure. The message was accompanied by a manifesto from this weekly publication in favor of marriage for all. This organ of the press offered nothing a priori commendable in my opinion, its columns having taunted Jacques Lacan for half a century once he had made public the low esteem in which he held Jean Daniel. Even so, I said yes in an instant. I was committed and relieved.[...]