[1] Active in the French resistance group Front National during World War II, he was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo in October 1944 and spent six months (November 1944 – April 1945) as a prisoner in the Dora concentration camp.
In 1952, again working with Jacques Bergier, Le Lionnais created UNESCO’s Kalinga-UNESCO Prize for excellence in the popularization of science.
He produced and hosted a popular-science program, “La Science en Marche,” for the France Culture radio station.
Le Lionnais was active in experimental and absurdist artistic movements, as Regent of the Collège de ‘Pataphysique and as co-founder and first president of Oulipo.
Oulipo was founded in 1960 with Raymond Queneau and later augmented, by Le Lionnais and others, with a series of analogous organizations including Oulipopo (detective fiction), Oumupo (music), Oupeinpo (painting), Oucinépo (film), and Oucuipo (cooking).