Born in 1953, François Héran is an alumnus of the École normale supérieure and holds a agrégation in philosophy (1975), a thesis in anthropology from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (1979) and a doctorat d'État from the Université Paris-Descartes (1996). He was awarded Zellidja scholarships for study trips to Egypt (1969) and Lebanon (1970).

After four years of fieldwork in southern Spain (for the Casa de Vélasquez) and Bolivia (for the Institut français d'études andines), where he carried out studies in agrarian sociology and historical anthropology (1976-1980), he joined INED (Institut national d'études démographiques) in 1980, and was almost immediately seconded to INSEE (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques). He first worked in Insee's " household conditions " division (1980-1992), before being appointed head of the demographic surveys and studies division (1993-1998), which produces and analyzes France's demographic indicators.

During these years spent between Ined and Insee, he conducted a series of national surveys on sociability, couple formation (with Michel Bozon), families' educational efforts, family history (with Laurent Toulemon), language transmission, electoral participation (with Dominique Rouault) and immigration. He is committed to preserving and revamping major sources of information on the evolution of family structures and immigration, such as the "family survey associated with the census", or the permanent demographic sample. He successfully advocates the development of statistics on the origins of migrants, which will make it possible to study the trajectories of the descendants of migrants, as well as the discrimination they suffer.

Alongside his involvement in official statistics and socio-demographic surveys, he has personally published a series of studies on the historiography of the social sciences, the relationship between sociology and philosophy, the interpretation of religious rituals and the formalization of kinship systems.