He became a professor at Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO), Paris,[1] where he held the Chair of Chinese Language and Literature from 1963 to 1999.
From 1968 to 1971, he was also a lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong,[2] where he was a colleague of the Belgian sinologist Pierre Ryckmans (the future Simon Leys).
Pimpaneau was at the centre of meetings between sinologists and radical Situationist theorists, such as his former student, René Viénet.
[3] Pimpaneau participated in 1976 in the documentary: Chinois, encore un effort pour être révolutionnaires!, directed by René Viénet.
He was also close to Georges Bataille at the end of his life, being one of the few present at the time of his death and burial in Vézelay in 1962.