Education
Faculty of Arts of Paris. École Normale Supérieure.
journalist university professor latinist
Faculty of Arts of Paris. École Normale Supérieure.
In January 1946, when he was offered a post at the University of Algiers, he accepted with alacrity—for him, Algeria was the birthplace of Saint Augustine, to whom he had dedicated his thesis at the Sorbonne. A confidant of Léon-Etienne Duval, he agitated for the independence of Algeria. With other Catholic intellectuals, such as François Mauriac, Louis Massignon, Henri Guillemin, Henri-Irénée Marrou, Pierre-Henri Simon, he criticised the French Army for using of torture in Algeria, in the pages of Le Monde and France-Observateur,
In 1963, at the request of Ahmed Ben Bella, he became rector of the University of Algiers.
But with the arrival in power of Houari Boumédiène, he resumed being a professor in the university and then returned to Paris to teach Latin at the Sorbonne.