Jean François Lyotard was born on August 10, 1924 in Vincennes, France to Jean-Pierre Lyotard, a sales representative, and Madeleine Cavalli.
In 1954, Lyotard became a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie, a French political organisation formed in 1948 around the inadequacy of the Trotskyist analysis to explain the new forms of domination in the Soviet Union.