The second son of Prime Minister Michel Debré and his wife, Anne-Marie Lemaresquier, François was also the brother of Vincent, Jean-Louis, and Bernard.
In the early 1970s, he worked on numerous reports for TF1, Antenne 2, and France Régions 3 in Chad, Ivory Coast, Uganda, and Pakistan.
He covered several major events, such as the Yom Kippur War, the start of Solidarity in Poland, and the dismissal of Jean-Bédel Bokassa in the Central African Republic.
On 16 December 2011,[4] Debré was given a two-month suspended sentence for his involvement in Jacques Chirac's scheme to raise money for his presidential run while serving as Mayor of Paris.
He died following a long illness in Montlouis-sur-Loire on 14 September 2020 at the age of 78, one day after the death of his brother, Bernard.