[2] He was the president of the École normale supérieure de Lyon and director of the French Commission for Atomic Energy.

[4] When the École normale supérieure de Lyon was founded in 1985, Bernard Bigot was appointed deputy director of studies.

In January 2009, he was appointed Director General of the French Atomic Energy Commission, replacing Alain Bugat.

In November 2014, he was appointed to succeed Osamu Motojima as Director General of the ITER international research project.

He was elected Director-General on 5 March 2015, and unanimously re-elected by the ITER Council in January 2019 for a further five years,[7] but fell ill and died on 14 May 2022.