It is well-known that Grothendieck's Esquisse d'un programme was submitted in 1984 as part as the author's application for the permanent position, Directeur de Recherche at CNRS (the main public research institution in France, employing thousands of full-time researchers.) This came
after Grothendieck had resigned his professorship at IHES and spent a
few years as a professor at the University of Montpellier. All of this is
for instance written in Esquisse d'un programme itself, or in Recoltes et Semailles.
What I would like to know (with certainty): what happened to his application to CNRS? Did he receive a permanent position? Another kind of position? Nothing? If he got
some offer, did he accept it or refuse it? If he accepted an offer, did he effectively hold it, and when, how, and why did he eventually give up the position
(I assume he did, because before long he disappeared almost completely.)
Now, Wikipedia (on the Esquisse d'un programme page) says something about it, namely that the application was successful and that he held the position held from 1984 to 1988.
It refers to an article in Science News, which, I seem to recall, did not say more. However, I have asked this of various people in France, receiving as many different answers as persons I asked.
So I would like confirmation of this point by knowledgeable people. Moreover, this Wikipedia sentence just answers part of the question: it doesn't say what kind of position
Grothendieck received, whether he effectively held it, and why and how he resigned from it.
On the other hand, this is a public event for which all or most
participants are still alive, so it should be relatively easy to obtain a knowledgeable answer.
I apologize that my question has absolutely no mathematical content, but there is a long sequence of well-accepted precedent questions about aspects of the lives of famous mathematicians and also about mathematical institutions.
Best Answer
I would think this is from an authoritative source, since apparently the author consulted with Bourguignon (chair of the hiring committee at CNRS).