Born in Nice, Robert Linhart studied philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure on the rue d'Ulm, where he founded the Union des Jeunes Communistes Marxistes-Léninistes in 1966 before founding the Grégoire de l'Union des Jeunes Communistes Marxistes-Léninistes with Benny Lévy. In May 1968, he was hospitalized for depression before deciding to settle down as a worker at Citroën. He published a book in 1978 that recounts this experience, L'Établi (Les Éditions de Minuit). In 1981, after a suicide attempt and a deep coma, he fell into a long period of silence from which he did not emerge until the turn of the century.