Introduction to Patrick Declerck

A philosopher, ethnologist, and psychoanalyst practising in Paris, Patrick Declerck is also a sharp critic of social attitudes in the Western world towards poverty in general and towards homelessness in particular. Declerck possesses a curious distinction among his fellow intellectuals in France: his is the only citation index to rise as the temperature falls. This is because, as Declerck observes in his lecture, the French government mobilizes its action plan for the homeless only once the temperature has dropped below 2 degrees centrigrade. Declerck attacks this plan for establishing what he calls a ‘thermal limit to the social contract’. This limit means that the predicament of those who are down and out in the streets of Paris appears unacceptable to the rest of society only when the temperature is low. At any other time, Parisian society and the French political establishment accept the suffering of the homeless as a ‘necessary’ evil. This acceptance, Declerck argues with passionate conviction, is part of the inner sadism with which mainstream Western societies treat poor and homeless people. Declerck bases his convictions upon rigorous research and continuous practical experience. He worked with homeless people in Paris for fifteen years, went down and out with the homeless for periods over a number of years, and—most important of all—helped found, in 1986, the first counselling and medical treatment service for the homeless in France. His book Les Naufragés (The Shipwrecked) (2001) combines these various experiences in a rigorous study of the homeless of Paris. The work, which has had a considerable impact in France but has unfortunately not yet been translated into English, is a testimony of Declerck’s experiences of living with the homeless, a narrative of their lives, and an account of the conversations he had with them. It is an effort to put homeless people and their plight ‘on the map’. It goes beyond a rigorous ethnographic description of the homeless of Paris to offer an explanation of how these people come to exist in our cities and why they remain in this position for so many years.