Paul Bonnenfant

Paul Bonnenfant is a former research director at the CNRS, associate researcher at IREMAM and CEFREPA. Also a photographer and Pyrenean climber, he achieved many firsts in the Pyrenees, some of which with Paul Mortier, Jean and Pierre Ravier and other local climbers. Preparing a degree in sociology at the Faculty of Letters in Bordeaux at the end of the 1950s, he studied during the Algerian War of Independence, which was, at that time, "the" subject that everyone was talking about in universities. At the end of his degree, in 1960, one of his professors mentioned the wish of the Compagnie française des pétroles (Algeria) to study the impact of its establishment on rural and Bedouin life in the Sahara. The company was looking for a student who, under the supervision of the professor, could conduct this study. PB was immediately attracted by the idea of ​​going to Algeria as a civilian, at a time when hundreds of thousands of young French people of his age were leaving as soldiers. He w...