Born in Henridorff (Moselle) on 8 January 1921, to a peasant mother and a socialist working class father, Freund was the eldest of six siblings.
In January 1941, he began fighting for the Libération movement of Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie, then in combat groups run by Henri Frenay, all the while getting his degree in philosophy.
In 1965, the year of his thesis at Sorbonne, he was elected professor of sociology at the University of Strasbourg, where he founded the departement of social sciences.
Freund was a support of limited democracy and that growing democratisation increases the reach of government, allowing it to become ever more invasive.
Politics, Freund believed, cannot solve any cultural problems or impose social values upon society, and it should not be involved in religious affairs.
Freund's work also drew attention to the corruption of language and its misuse in democracy: "La démocratie se décompose quand elle dilapide la sincérité en démagogie et en flatterie", i.e. "Democracy breaks down when it squanders sincerity in demagoguery and flattery".