Daniel Defert

Who is Daniel Defert?

Daniel Defert is a prominent French AIDS activist and the founding president of the first AIDS awareness organization in France, AIDES. He started the organization after the death of his partner, the French philosopher Michel Foucault. He is an alumnus of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud.

A professor of sociology, Daniel Defert has been Assistant, Maître-assistant, then Maître de Conférence at the Centre Universitaire of Vincennes, which became in 1972, Université de Paris VIII Vincennes. He has been a member of the scientific committee for human sciences of the International Conference on AIDS; member of the World Commission for AIDS; member of the National Committee for AIDS, of the Global AIDS Policy Coalition of Harvard University, and of the French "Haut Comité de la Santé Publique".

Daniel Defert is author of numerous articles in the domain of ethno-iconography and public health. He has been awarded the decoration of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and received in 1998 the Prix Alexander Onassis for the creation of AIDES.