Gondjout was a member of the Mpongwe ethnic group, and served in the French colonial administration from 1928, and founded the Cercle amical et mutualiste des évolués de Port-Gentil in 1943.

When Gondjout filed a motion of censure he was charged with attempting a coup d'état and sentenced to two years in prison.

Following his release, M'ba appointed him to the largely symbolic post of President of the Economic Council, in part to silence the threat he represented.

Gondjout served as Minister of State during the abortive 1964 Gabon coup d'état but was acquitted of all charges during his subsequent trial.

[7] Gondjout was elected to the Senate of France on 24 July 1949 and re-elected on 18 May 1952—both times as an independent candidate—serving until the end of his term on 7 June 1958.

[7] Over the course of the following seven years, the party published a newspaper[11] which caught the eye of the aspiring politician Léon M'ba, whom Gondjout had earlier helped to elect to the Gabonese council of government.

[12] The two formed an alliance supported by the Mpongwe business community, the wealthy coastal Fangs (like M'ba), and the French, which managed to overpower Jean-Hilaire Aubame and fellow members of the Gabonese Democratic and Social Union.

[18] He supposedly hoped to benefit from a balance of power modified to his own advantage, and to model Gabon after the Western democracies.

[18] On 16 November, under the pretext of a conspiracy, M'ba declared a state of emergency, ordering the internment of eight BDG opponents and the dissolution of the National Assembly the day after.

[17] He was imprisoned in a remote village under house arrest, where he was supplied, according to U.S. ambassador to Gabon, Charles Darlington, "with all the whisky and beer he [could] drink and all the girls he want[ed]".

[26] On Radio Libreville, the military announced to the Gabonese people that a coup d'état had taken place, asked for technical assistance, and told the French not to interfere in this matter.

[25] M'ba was forced to broadcast a speech acknowledging his defeat, in which he said, "The D-Day is here, the injustices are beyond measure, these people are patient, but their patience has limits.

"[25][27] No blood was shed during the event, and when the Gabonese people did not respond violently the military interpreted this as a sign of approval.

[38] A "state of precations" was imposed, which decreed that local government keep surveillance on suspected troublemakers and, if necessary, order curfew, and special permits were required to travel through the town.

He argued that the French intervention was effectively an illegal act of interference; a belief shared by both Gondjout and the former education minister, Jean Mare Ekoh.