Returning to Algeria, he spent a few months at the Algerian News Office and then was dismissed, along with his colleagues from the Institute for Cinema’s graduating class after a petition demanding more responsibility for the workers. To calm the protest, the group of alumni of the Institute for Cinema including Allouache was sent to France for a three-month internship at the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF). He remained in France for several years and enrolled at the École pratique des hautes études with Marc Ferro and took the course "Analysis of 20th century film documents".