276 Derrida 1963–1983
through French literature, languages, history, and even the sci-
ences? And has anyone ever paid attention to the real diffi culty
of teaching these other subjects? Or religious instruction? Or
moral education?^25The Greph was offi cially set up on 15 January 1975, and would
play a major role in the fi ght against the Haby Reform, whic h greatly
increased its visibility. Eff ectively supported by Roland Brunet, a
teacher at the Lycée Voltaire, Derrida was also aided by a small
group of twenty to thirty persons, including Élisabeth de Fontenay,
Sarah Kofman, Marie-Louise Mallet, Michèle Le Doeuff , Bernard
Pautrat, and Jean-Jacques Rosat. There was also his niece Martine
Meskel, who was then working towards her licence in philosophy,
and, above all, Sylviane Agacinski, who played a very active part. It
was probably she who helped to make Jacques aware of the prob-
lems raised by the teaching of philosophy in terminale, a reality of
which he had only distant and somewhat unhappy memories.
Even though the movement developed throughout France, the
provisional seat of the Greph was established at the École Normale
Supérieure, where most of the meetings also took place. For Derrida,
who did not have the least secretarial help, the administrative and
practical aspects soon became very burdensome. As Marie-Louise
Mollet remembers:
He did more than play his part, and never drew back from the
most humdrum tasks. One of the things that struck me most
at the time was the fact that he behaved in the same way to all
the participants, whatever their qualifi cations, functions, and
social status. There was a very friendly atmosphere in our meet-
ings, with a ferment of ideas and a desire for innovation that
seemed to make him happy.^26The battles in which the Greph was involved were given added
point by the institutional problems that Althusser faced. In June
1975, he took his doctorate on the basis of work already published
at the University of Amiens. But a few days later, the Universities’
Consultative Committee refused to add the author of For Marx to
the list of those able to teach as university lecturers. Althusser’s emi-
nence gave a considerable echo to the appeal drawn up by Derrida
and widely spread by the Greph:
All those interested in philosophical activity, political theory,
political struggles (etc.) will not need us to remind them
of Althusser’s work [.. .]. It is well known that, in France
and the whole world, this work has profoundly aff ected,
renewed, fertilized the fi eld of Marxist thought. And not only