The main scientific area of Claude Allègre is geochemistry. He was one of the first geochemists to be worked on the samples of moon rock. It obtained the Crafoord price, equivalent of the Nobel Prize for sciences of the ground. He succeeds Lively Maurice with the presidency of Office of geological and mining research. On the 4th of June, 1997 to the 6th of April 2000, he was appointed Minister for National Education, the Research and the Technology of the French Government of Lionel Jospin. He opposed the closure of the French Fast Breeder Reactor ”Phenix” (500MW) and saved it, as the other French FBR, SuperPhenix (1500MW) was closed due to the obscurantism of the French Green Party. Claude Allègre is one of the main supports of the French Nuclear Program.

Claude Allègre is officially of retirement age, but continues to perform academic work at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (Institute of Geophysics, Paris).

Claude Allègre is an ISI highly cited researcher

Professional career:

• 1976-1986: director ofInstitute of Physique of the Earth of Paris.
• 1984-1985: Delegated National to Research
• 1989-1994: deputy with the European Parliament
• 1992-1997: chairman of the board of Office of geological and mining research
• 1995 : Member of the French Academy of Sciences
• 4 juin 1997 - 27 mars 2000 : Minister of National Education, Research and Technology of France

• Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (1985)]
• Crafoord Prize for geology along with Gerald J. Wasserburg, (1986)
• Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, (1987)]
• Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London, (1987)
• Gold Medal of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, (1994) ]
• Wiliam Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union(1995)