Rafał Majka: AIDES was founded several decades ago, in 1984. Throughout the years, it has gained a lot of experience and knowledge and has always been eager to share. The founder of AIDES, Daniel Defert, sought to create "a place of reflection, solidarity and transformation." How have the ideas been practiced by AIDES? Bruno Spire: Solidarity came first. The first actions were performed under the umbrella of solidarity. People were very shocked by the new epidemic in the 1980s and everybody in

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... IDES knew someone who got infected or was personally confronted with HIV. A lot of people were diagnosed with HIV, and nobody knew what to do, so there was a need of support in a time when families were excluding people with HIV. Some people had to conceal they were gay, as homosexuality was stigmatized in many communities. People were alone and solidarity was what was needed. It was practiced as selfsupport groups, people informing each other about the disease and sharing ideas on how to resist in the absence of any treatment. Then a couple of years later, at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, there was a big schism in AIDES. Some members of AIDES who were professionals thought that the response to the HIV/AIDS crisis needs to be professionalized so that AIDES should become a space for doctors and social assistants, but it was against the idea of Daniel Defert who was defending the model of community-based activities. It was not that all members had to be volunteers; volunteering was not enough. AIDES had to be able to have staff, but the staff should be anchored in the community. We didn't want to be like a private organization hiring doctors and nurses. We wanted to be a community-based organization where people using their life experience were able to be involved in the response. And so there was a split. Those who wanted to have a type of service organization, and who are now in a group called Group SOS, formed of ARCAT-SIDA and it grew to include other services organization, but politically they didn't wield any power. They were just interested in providing services, and they are doing a really good job, but it's not the project of Daniel Defert. And then the social transformation... The first social transformation was that the rights of patients were recognized, the rights of all patients, no matter their serostatus. Now when people go to hospital, they must be fully informed by doctors. This is a big change compared to the past, thanks to the HIV crisis and its related activism.