His contributions include work in functional analysis, potential theory, topology and measure theory.

He did postgraduate work at the École Normale Supérieure Paris where his advisor was Arnaud Denjoy.

His honours and awards included being a Member of the Académie des Sciences, and an Officier of the Légion d’Honneur.

His students include Haïm Brezis, Gilles Godefroy, Nassif Ghoussoub, Michel L. Lapidus, and Michel Talagrand.

He was married to mathematician and mathematical physicist Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, with whom he had a son Daniel and a daughter Geneviève.