He was a long-standing follower of Charles de Gaulle, at different times working for him in underground, intelligence, political, civil and diplomatic capacities.
He ended the war with the rank of Chef de Mission 1st class at the Directorate General of Studies and Research (DGER), the intelligence agency of the Free French Forces.
He wrote an extensive series of Spy thrillers/Detective novels featuring a French intelligence operative and detective nicknamed "Le Gorille" ("The Gorilla").
As such, it was he who negotiated in 1967 the release and expulsion to France of Régis Debray, captured by the Bolivian soldiers while he was leaving the headquarters of revolutionary Che Guevara (who was killed shortly afterwards).
At the direction of President De Gaulle and despite international pressure, France was trying to hold on to this last colony, manipulating ethnic divisions between Somali and Afar inhabitants.
In his tenure, Ponchardier was confronted with increasingly militant activities by the FLCS ("Front de Libération de la Côte des Somalis", Somali Coast Liberation Front) which in January 1970 claimed an attack on the popular Palm in Zinc, a bar in Djibouti City.