Bollardière became a pacifist after a talk by the writer in Lorient, on 23 October 1970. He subsequently co-founded the , an organisation promoting the principles of non-violence. He was president of the association "Logement et Promotion Sociale" between 1968 and 1978, focusing on public housing with a particular concentration on immigrants from southern Europe and Africa. He was also involved in adult education and the Breton regionalist movement, believing that the decline of Breton culture and the area's economic underdevelopment were both linked to the centralisation of the French state. In July 1973, he was arrested by the French Navy during protests against nuclear trials in Mururoa, along with journalist Brice Lalonde, priest Jean Toulat and Jean-Marie Muller. The Council of Ministers, then headed by Georges Pompidou, removed him from the army as a disciplinary measure and gave him a pension - up to this point, he had still formally been a general, albeit not serving. The group responded to their detention by going on hunger strike: after five days, Bollardière started suffering from hypertension and was moved to hospital for treatment. Following the incident he returned his Legion of Honour to the French government in protest. He was also a supporter of the successful Fight for the Larzac, which protested against the expansion of a French army camp on the Larzac plateau, a project which was cancelled by François Mitterrand when he was elected President of France in 1981.