An ordinary man: Louis Althusser killed his wife, Hélène Rytmann-Legotien, who wanted to leave him

The article offers a look at the assassination in 1980 of Hélène Rytmann-Legotien by her partner, Louis Althusser, then a famous Marxist philosopher teaching at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. The goal is to grasp the political significance of this murder and of public discourse about the killer’s psychology, which tended to absolve him of his responsibility or even to justify the murderer. Based on feminist analysis of discourse about male violence against women (Mélissa Blais, Patrizia Romito, Jalna Hanmer), the article reviews the social context (French patriarchy in 1970 and 1980), before discussing the phenomenon of male solidarity and protection in favour of a man who murders his partner but who has strong social and cultural capital. Particular attention is paid to the manoeuvers by which the murderer and his friends and allies managed to position him as a victim and to evacuate the real murder victim.