Daniel Defert was the lover of Michel Foucault for the last 25 years of Foucault's life, although he and Foucault avoided that term, preferring to refer to their relationship as a "state of passion." He met Foucault while he was a philosophy student at the University of Clermont-Ferrard in France. After Foucault's death, Defert went on to edit many editions of his work.