In Life and in Death 2003–2004 523
Derrida told Chérif that, if it had been any other meeting, he
would have cancelled. But he was keen to speak, that evening, ‘as
an Algerian’. More than ever, it was important for him to link all
the threads of his life: ‘Among all the cultural riches that I have
received, that I have inherited, my Algerian culture is among those
that have sustained me most strongly.’^12
Just after this meeting, Derrida began his treatment. He stopped
writing for several weeks, as is shown by the few personal lines that
accompany the ‘Plea for a common foreign policy’ for the whole
of Europe, published on 31 May 2003 in Libération and several
European newspapers.
Jürgen Habermas and I wish to sign together this analysis
which is also an appeal. We deem it necessary and urgent,
today, for a German and a French philosopher, in spite of
the diff erences that might have separated them in the past,
to join their voices here. This text, as will easily be seen, is
written by Jürgen Habermas. In spite of my wishes, personal
circumstances have prevented me from writing such a text, so I
suggested to Jürgen Habermas that I co-sign this appeal, whose
premises and perspectives I essentially share.^13From the window of the room where he was receiving chemo at
the Institut Curie, Derrida could see the rue d’Ulm and the entrance
of the École where he had spent so many years of his life. He sub-
mitted docilely to the gruelling treatment, without altogether losing
hope. After all, hadn’t he been told of a patient who had been in
remission for seventeen years...? Hadn’t Dr Jean-Marc Extra told
him that enormous progress had recently been made in the treat-
ment of pancreatic cancer...? Marguerite Derrida relates that
Jacques was determined not to lose weight and forced himself to eat
even when he had no appetite: ‘He lost some hair, but not much.
Physically, he looked well and seemed to be in as good a shape as
possible, given the circumstances. We all kept each other going with
the idea that there would be a remission.’
The pernicious eff ects of chemotherapy turned out to be mainly
psychological. The loss of energy and the terrible exhaustion
plunged Derrida into a new attack of depression that made him
feel distant from his projects and from the world. ‘For the fi rst time
in decades, he was forced to press the pause button,’ says Albert
Dichy. ‘While his capacity for work had always been huge, he had
to give up a whole series of texts, lectures, and trips, and he found
this really hard.’^14
The other thing which Derrida found annoying was the pre-
mortem compassion spreading across the intellectual world and
the sudden solicitude that some were showing him ‘before it was