His father, an officer in the French Air Force, was killed in a flight accident three months before Éric Besson's birth.

He then studied at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), before unsuccessfully applying to the École nationale d'administration (ENA).

However, he resigned as the PS finance secretary on 14 February 2007 over frustration about Royal's presidential campaign, which he saw as "badly organised".

[7][8] He then quit the Socialist Party on 21 February and supported Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential bid for which he was harshly criticized.

[8][9] In May 2007, he was appointed as State Secretary for Prospectives and Evaluation of Public Policies under the government of Francois Fillon.

[12] On 18 March 2008, following a ministerial reshuffle, the position of Secretary of State for the Digital Economy was created and subsequently given to Besson.

[13] The creation of the post was a response to the Attali report that stressed the importance of digital development for France's economic future.

[20] Entry formalities for foreigners were simplified, a long-term visa system was established, and 1,000 additional places in reception centers were opened to raise their capacity to absorb asylum seekers.

[20] As part of an EU-wide resettlement system to distribute refugees in highly exposed countries such as Greece, Malta and Italy more evenly across the EU, Besson agreed to the resettlement of refugees from Malta to France, making France the first country to act on the scheme.

[22] In September 2009, an area known as "the Jungle" near Calais, where many illegal immigrants had settled in order to cross the British channel to the UK, was cleared.

[23] According to Besson, the operation was targeting the "logistical infrastructure and mafia-style networks of people traffickers who sell the trip to England at a very high price".

[25] Besson was in charge of organizing the debate and argued that discussions about identity had been left to right-wing extremists such as Jean-Marie Le Pen for too long.

[25] The debate damaged Besson's political standing, with one weekly magazine calling him "the most hated man" in the Republic.

[38] Although he initially did not seek re-election as mayor, he once again ran for the position during the municipal elections in 2014 after the candidate he supported withdrew his candidacy for health reasons.