In 1930, he joined the Agricultural Zoology station at La Grand Ferrade as an assistant preparator and the following year he completed his BSc (license) at the University of Bordeaux.
From January 1932 to December 1941 he was at La Rochelle as an assistant in the Laboratory of G. Belloc at the Scientific and Technical Office of Fisheries then headed by Edouard Le Danois.
When he was demobilised in July 1940, he was seconded as head of laboratory to the Scientific and Technical Office of Maritime Fisheries, part of the General Inspectorate of Livestock Services in Dakar.
He was then recruited as an assistant at the French Institute of North Africa (L'Institut Français de l'Afrique du Nord) in 1946.
Professor Théodore Monod charged him with the setting up of an oceanographic and biological research station on the island of Gorée, where he was to remain until his retirement in 1965.