Son of a doctor and born in Colonial French Africa, he studied in Paris at famous high schools and colleges. He then met leftist leaders
Alain Krivine and
Daniel Cohn-Bendit and also
Anne Wiazemsky who was then a student in Nanterre and
Jean-Luc Godard. He was considered an important member of the 1968 student organizations. He was expelled from France at the same time as Cohn-Bendit. He later was jailed in Sénégal and died in mysterious circumstances in the prison on Gorée island in 1973. Anne Wiasemsky talks about him in her autobiographical novel 'Une année studieuse' (2012).