École française d'Extrême-Orient
His father, Gustave Durand, was chief translator of Annamese at the Palais de Justice, Hanoi; Gustave was from Provence and Maurice's mother was from Kien An. He studied in France and married a Belgian violinist named Sylvie Durand. During World War II he was an officer in Cameroon and Chad. In 1946 he returned to Vietnam to teach at and then direct the École française d'Extrême-Orient. On his return to France he taught Vietnamese at the École pratique des Hautes Études.