In view of the recent debates on the proposal of canceling member states’ debt, held by the European Central Bank, this article looks back at the “career” of the idea of public debt cancellation. Debt cancellation is not a new idea, since Third World activists had already taken it up in the 1980s, during another debt crisis at a time when their discourse appeared to be part of a very heterodox stance. The idea of cancellation was gradually formalized, consolidated, and promoted to national politicians, notably in Belgium and Ecuador. Howerver, we will analyse how the scope of debt cancellation has evolved. Since it overall concerned Third-World countries in the past, it now takes place in an entirely different context.