While working on his thesis, Albert Silbert was a high school teacher, a role that was common in France at the time. Even today, there is greater fluidity between secondary and higher education in France than in Portugal. The same year he submitted his thesis at the Sorbonne, in 1964, Braudel invited him to lead a seminar at the École des Hautes Études. He later joined the University of Clermont-Ferrand, where he taught from 1967 until his retirement in 1977. In Paris, Silbert encountered a new generation of exiled Portuguese scholars, including Victor de Sá and Miriam Halpern Pereira, who were pursuing their doctoral studies in France. He developed a particular connection with the latter, serving on her thesis jury and maintaining a highly productive intellectual and academic relationship with her in the post-25 April 1974 period.

Reflecting on the effects of Salazarism on Portuguese historiography—which, among other consequences, barred historians such as Vitorino Magalhães Godinho and Joel Serrão from university positions—Silbert also recalled others who had been forced to leave the country. In France alone, he mentioned José-Augusto França, Manuel Villaverde Cabral, and Fernando Medeiros, while noting those who had gone to England, such as Vasco Pulido Valente and Jaime Reis. His conclusion was unequivocal, as he expressed in an interview with Ler História : "I think that Salazarism from an intellectual point of view was a disaster" (interview with Ler História Issue 5, 1985, p.125).

After the revolution of 25 April 1974, Silbert—previously overlooked by Portuguese universities—began to engage regularly with them, and his work became a cornerstone of the renewed historiography and historical studies that experienced a remarkable surge during this period. He was first invited to Portugal in 1981 by ISCTE’s Centre for the Study of Contemporary Portuguese History (CEHCP), which was founded and directed by Miriam Halpern Pereira. In this context, Silbert participated in a renowned colloquium on Liberalismo na Península Ibérica na primeira metade do século XIX [Liberalism in the Iberian Peninsula in the First Half of the 19th Century], which, alongside another organised by the Gabinete de Investigações Sociais [Office of Social Investigations] in 1979 on O século XIX em Portugal [The 19th Century in Portugal], demonstrated the burgeoning interest in studies of the 19th century at the time. Miriam Halpern Pereira aptly described this trend as a "sign of the great cultural change underway" (“Homenagem a Albert Silbert”, Público, 3 January 1997). Silbert was subsequently invited to several Portuguese universities, including Évora, Porto, and Coimbra. In 1991, the University of Coimbra awarded him the honorary title of Doctor Honoris Causa. On the same occasion, he was also honoured by APHES (the Portuguese Association of Economic and Social History) at a meeting held in Coimbra. During his Doctor Honoris Causa ceremony, Silbert was sponsored by António de Oliveira, with Luís Reis Torgal and Irene Vaquinhas delivering the eulogy. Torgal later published a brief article on the event in the Revista de História das Ideias [Journal of the History of Ideas] ("Doctoramento Honoris Causa do Professor Albert Silbert," Revista de História das Ideias , pp. 513–514), noting the attendance of the then-President of the Republic, Mário Soares. Beyond Silbert's intellectual renown, this distinguished presence also reflected the pivotal material and symbolic role he had played among Portuguese exiles in France.

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