He was among the first in France to clone and sequence plant DNA in the early 1980s, and, as such, he helped to organize the community of plant biology researchers in France by creating in 1984 with Claude Gigot (IBMC Strasbourg) the CNRS's RCP (Recherche Coopérative sur Programme) "Isolation, structure et expression du génome nucléaire des plantes" which is at the origin of the development of plant molecular biology in France.