He was the son-in-law of General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French and postwar President of France.
Finally, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in mid-1941, he joined General de Gaulle and the Free French Forces (FFL) in London.
On 22 August 1962 he was in the same car as his father-in-law during the terrorist attack of Petit-Clamart planned by the Organisation armée secrète, when he saved the life of Charles de Gaulle.
As a general, he commanded the French military academy of Saint-Cyr, and of l'École militaire interarmes de Coëtquidan (1964).
He resigned from the first two positions in 1981 in order not to be obligated to swear allegiance to, and present the Grand Necklace of the Légion d'Honneur to, newly elected French President François Mitterrand, who had called his father-in-law, Charles de Gaulle, a "dictator" in the 1960s.