Paul Audinet

Paul Audinet is a PhD candidate in contemporary history at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, supervised by Professors Frédéric Tristram and Pierre Vermeren. After two years in a classe préparatoire in Paris, he joined ESCP Business School, where he earned a Master in Management, while simultaneously completing a law degree and a Master’s in economic history at Paris 1. Before devoting himself more fully to his research, he worked in economic diplomacy abroad.

He is preparing a dissertation on the history of Algerian oil from the first discoveries of deposits in the north of the country in 1872 to the nationalisation of hydrocarbons in 1971. He analyses how the French state progressively equipped itself with a powerful oil apparatus by relying on Algeria as a key territorial and legal space - through mining legislation, fiscal and regulatory instruments, and public bodies such as SN REPAL - and how these arrangements, particularly in the period from 1956 to the early 1970s, made Algeria central to French energy security. He then examines how Algerian authorities reappropriated and transformed the inherited structures, leading up to the 1971 nationalisation, which redefined the relationship between France and Algeria and anchored the country’s position in global oil politics.