ABSTRACT
What has happened recently at the faculty of Vincennes in the psychoanalysis department is apparently quite simple: the firing of a certain number of parttime teachers for reasons of administrative and pedagogical reorganization. In an article in Le Monde, Roger-Pol Droit nevertheless asks if it is not a matter of a Vichy-style purge. The process of termination of employment, the choice of those fired, the handling of opposition, and the immediate naming of replacements could indeed remind one, mutatis mutandis, of a Stalinist operation. Stalinism is not the monopoly of the communist parties; it has also occurred in leftist groups, and psychoanalytic associations have been no more immune to its influence. This would seem to be confirmed by the lack of resistance shown by those sacked and by their allies. They did not actively collaborate in their own trials, but one can imagine that a second wave of purges might bring things to this point.
