Migrations, rescue... and mathematics
Arnaud Banos, research director at CNRS, a geographer specializing in migrations, is also a sea rescuer. In these two aspects of his work, he is led to use mathematics as a modeling tool.

On the specific theme of migration and sea rescue, he has given and will give the following conferences:
Popularization 2026-2027
During the school year again, the CRM-CNRS will participate in the dissemination of mathematics to the general public, particularly to students.
Modeling Societies
What is it for? Who does it serve? How far should we go?
Arnaud Banos will give lectures on the theme of modeling societies to students from the two institutions of the AEFE network in Montreal, the Collège international Marie de France and the Collège Stanislas:
- October 15, Collège international Marie de France;
- January 12: Collège Stanislas (“troisièmes”);
- January 13: Collège Stanislas (“secondes”).
Foundations of Mathematics: Geometry and Number Theory
Emmanuel Royer will give two lectures to students at the Collège Stanislas in Montreal:
Presentation of the tools for cooperation
On October 1, 2026, Emmanuel Royer presented mathematical cooperation tools between France and Quebec, emphasizing:
- the possibility of assigning mathematicians from France to Quebec for long-term stays (six months or more);
- opportunities provided through the Fonds de recherche du Québec for short-term stays in France and Quebec;
- the European Community’s Synergy program.
The projected document is available:
A professor at the University of Clermont-Auvergne, Emmanuel Royer is welcomed in delegation for institutional functions by the CNRS, to lead the CRM-CNRS.
Departure of Lucile Devin
Arriving on September 1st, 2025, Lucile Devin left the CRM-CNRS (IRL3457) on August 31, 2026.
She was present during the thematic program Universal Statistics in Number Theory at the Centre de recherches mathématiques.
During her assignment at the international laboratory, Lucile Devin completed a work titled Discrepancies in the distribution of Gaussian primes published by Mathematische Zeitschrift.
She also finished a collaborative work with Chantal David, Alessandro Fazzari, and Ezra Waxman now available in prepublication: Average analytic rank for the 𝐿-functions of the elliptic curves .
The CRM-CNRS welcomes Philippe Eyssidieux for a long stay
Starting from September 1st, 2026, and for 1 year, the CRM-CNRS welcomes Philippe Eyssidieux.
Philippe EYSSIDIEUX
Professor, University of Grenoble Alpes
09/01/2026 – 08/31/2027
Philippe Eyssidieux, after a thesis in 1994 at the University of Paris-Sud under the supervision of Ngaiming Mok, was a CNRS Researcher at the University of Toulouse III from 1995 to 2005 and has been a Professor at the University of Grenoble-Alpes since 2005. He has supervised 7 theses, including those of Julien Keller (Professor at UQAM) and Thibaut Delcroix (Associate Professor HDR at the University of Montpellier, France).
Departure of Marc-Hubert Nicole
Arrived on September 1st, 2025, Marc-Hubert Nicole left the CRM-CNRS (IRL3457) on August 31, 2026.
He was staff assigned by the CNRS for six months and then a Simons-CRM professor for six months.
This stay allowed him to direct his research towards diophantine geometry, particularly studying a p-adic variant of the Ax-Lindemann theorem for certain p-adically uniformized Shimura varieties. These works were presented in Montreal and Quebec, as well as at several international conferences (Spain, United States, Italy, Vietnam).
Participation in the ISM Discovery School: Kähler Geometry, Algebraic Geometry and Arithmetic, Hyperbolicity
The discovery school of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences Kähler Geometry, Algebraic and Arithmetic Geometry, Hyperbolicity will take place at the Université du Québec à Montréal from August 24 to 28, 2026.
The international research laboratory CRM-CNRS supports the conference by contributing to the funding of Hugues Auvray.
Departure of Sébastien Labbé
Arrived on August 1st, 2025, Sébastien Labbé left the CRM-CNRS (IRL3457) on July 31, 2026.
His stay had the main objective of collaborating with members of the Laboratory of Algebra, Combinatorics, and Mathematical Computer Science (Lacim, University of Quebec in Montreal). The proximity of Alejandro Morales notably allowed him to complete a work with Jean-Christophe Aval (CNRS) shortly after his arrival, which led to fruitful exchanges with several members of Lacim.
He took advantage of a visit to Lacim by Peter Selinger (Dalhousie University, Halifax) to start a discussion with him on constructing hat tilings using a Markov partition, a discussion that resulted in a joint work in the spring of 2026;
Departure of Didier Lesesvre
Arrived on January 4, 2026, Didier Lesesvre left the CRM-CNRS (IRL3457) on July 3, 2026.
He participated in all activities of the thematic program « Universal Statistics in Number Theory ».
He took advantage of his stay to begin collaborations with other members of the international laboratory (Lucile Devin, Richard Griffon, Emmanuel Royer) as well as with Ramon Nunes from the Universidade Federal do Ceará (Brazil). He also invited Siu Hang Man (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) and Ade Irma Suriajaya (Kyushu University, Japan). Finally, he was invited to give seminars in Canada (Ottawa, Vancouver, Lethbridge, Montreal, Saint John), the United States (San José, Santa Clara, San Francisco, University of Maine), and Brazil (Fortaleza).
The CRM-CNRS welcomes Arnaud Banos for a long stay
Starting from July 1, 2026, and for two years, the CRM-CNRS welcomes Arnaud Banos.
Arnaud BANOS
Research Director, CNRS
01/07/2026 – 31/06/2028
Arnaud Banos is a Research Director at CNRS.
A trained geographer, he completed his doctoral thesis in CIFRE (industrial research training agreement) within the KEOLIS group, before undertaking a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Research Department of Accidentology at the National Institute for Research on Transport and their Safety.
He joined CNRS in 2006, where he took over the direction of the Institute of Complex Systems of Paris Île de France, before leading the UMR Géographie-cités, and then the Labex DynamiTe. He ultimately served for 4 years as a Scientific Panel Advisor at the High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education, responsible for evaluating French units in the four disciplinary fields of geography-planning-urbanism-architecture.
Hands-in-Pockets Mathematics at Collège Stanislas
On January 18 and 25, the students in “Quatrième” and “Troisième” at Collège Stanislas in Montreal (a French international school under the AEFE) had the opportunity to attend an hour of “hands-in-pockets mathematics.” Scientists from CRM-CNRS delivered ten-minute flash talks to the students. The goal was to discuss a mathematical topic in a relaxed manner, using minimal written support, and to provide students with ideas for topics for the oral exams of the national brevet and baccalaureate diplomas.
Conference for Parents at Collège Stanislas
On Tuesday, March 23, Emmanuel Royer gave a conference aimed at the parents of students at Collège Stanislas.
The oldest traces of mathematics that we know of date back three thousand years before our era. At that time, it was about measuring and sharing.
Little by little, mathematics became an abstract science, whose goal is to define and demonstrate. A pioneer of this approach was Euclid, with his Elements, three hundred years before our era.