Lafond was born in France during the liberation of Paris from the Nazis. After attending the class of Michel Foucault and Michel Serres, he taught philosophy from 1971 "while pursuing research in audio-visual training and communications". In 1974 Lafond left France for Quebec and became a Canadian citizen in 1981. After teaching at the Université de Montréal he left the university to focus on film-making, radio and writing. From his first marriage Lafond has two daughters Estelle and Élise, as well as two grandchildren. With his current wife former Governor General Michaëlle Jean he has a daughter Marie-Éden, adopted from Haiti.
Books
Images d'un doux ethnocide, with Arthur Lamothe, Montréal, Ateliers audio-visuels du Québec, 1979.
Vidéo-communication, with Claire Meunier, Montréal, Publications Grerdave, 1979.
Pratique et analyse des médias en milieu éducatif, Montréal, Publications Grerdave, 1980.
Le film sous influence : un procédé d'analyse, Paris, Édilig, "Médiathèque", 1982.
Un désir d'Amérique. Fragments nomades, Montréal, Édito, 2015.
Introduction
"Préface : la rencontre", in Olivier Ducharme et Pierre-Alexandre Fradet, Une vie sans bon sens. Regard philosophique sur Pierre Perrault, Montréal, Nota bene, 2016.
When in 2005 his wife was nominated by Prime MinisterPaul Martin as the next Governor General, controversy arose when his past resurfaced. While the personality of Michaëlle Jean was mostly accepted throughout Canada, Lafond himself had early on been suspected of being a Quebec separatist because of some of his movies. When an article in a sovereigntist journal made its way to the press, alleging that Lafond had befriended a former FLQ member who had built for him a cache "to hide weapons" in his library. Later in August, his wife reacted to this in a formal letter announcing she and her husband "had never adhered to a political party or to the sovereigntist ideology". Confusion continues to surround his loyalties. In his book, La manière nègre, he wrote, "So, a sovereign Quebec? An independent Quebec? Yes, and I applaud with both hands and I promise to be at all the St. Jean parades." However, in October 2005, in an interview with Radio-Canada he said, "I never believed that I could become a separatist. I have a great deal of difficulty with nationalism in general." He also called members of the sovereigntist movement who had called him a traitor, terrorists. At the same time he affirmed that he was a Québécois before a Canadian. He believes that he has always fought for the "cultural independence" of Quebec, but nothing further. Lafond's 2006 film , a documentary about an American political activist who has admitted to assassinating an Iranian diplomat in 1980, who appeared, unexpectedly, in the 2001 filmKandahar, also stirred controversy. The National Post asserted that the film was too sympathetic to David Belfield, the activist.
