[The father: a psychoanalytical reflection.]

The author briefly presents certain perspectives offered by psychoanalytic theory on the subject of the father's presence near his pre-oedipal child. The points of views discussed (post-Kleinian, D.W. Winnicott, Lacan, F. Dolto) seek to present the specific use to which a baby can put his father's presence. A few short vignettes taken from the author's clinical practice, within the framework of intervention with both child and parent in a drop-in centre, as well as in her private office practice, help illustrate the presentation. The paternal question is situated in the context of present-day social realities and of the crisis of parenthood at the time when the couple is transformed into a family, with the event of the child's birth.