[note 1][8][5] His father was a Hungarian–Jewish immigrant[5] who fled Hungary in 1937 to Belgium where, as soon as his country came under German occupation, he entered the French Resistance, where he specialised in forging papers.

[6] Gyula Balkány was arrested in Paris in 1941, and interned in Drancy internment camp[6] An Auschwitz survivor, Balkany senior returned to Neuilly after the war; he bought and sold equipment that was too heavy for Americans to ship home, and invested his earnings in a line of women's clothing and a chain of luxury ready-to-wear stores.

He appeared in Soleil noir (Black Sun) by Denys de La Patellière[6] and J'ai tué Raspoutine (I killed Rasputin) by Robert Hossein.

[15] In 1970, he was 22 years old and performed his military service at the Élysée Palace, in Georges Pompidou's office, where he got in touch with the secretary general Michel Jobert, who would later be witness at his wedding.

[13] During the 1978 French legislative election, Jacques Chirac sent him to fight the first constituency of Yonne against the secretary general of the rival center-right UDF party, Jean-Pierre Soisson.

[12] In 1981, after the dissolution of the National Assembly by François Mitterrand, he ran in the legislative elections where he was defeated by getting 46% of the votes against the Communist deputy mayor of Clichy, Parfait Jans [fr].

During his first two terms, he contributed to the radical re-shaping of Levallois-Perret, transforming the deliquescent industrial zones or wastelands (occupying nearly a quarter of the city's area) into residential and office districts.

In May 1996, the 9th chamber of the Nanterre Criminal Court convicted Balkany for "misappropriation of public funds for personal gain" (decision upheld on appeal on 30 January 1997), with a 15 months suspended jail sentence, 200,000 francs fine and two years of ineligibility.

[22] His wife Isabelle, vice-president of the general council of Hauts-de-Seine and city councilor in Levallois-Perret, received the same sentence for misappropriation.

He also owed Levallois-Perret €230,865.57, being the interest on the debt that the judges made run as of 31 May 1995, date of the dismissal by the mayor of the municipal agents.

[24] After François Baroin rejected this request in June 2011, Balkany settled €63,684.43 and obtained from the Treasury a repayment schedule for the outstanding balance of €123,000.

[28] Balkany made international news on 17 July 2012, just days before the vote on a new national sexual harassment bill, when male lawmakers in the National Assembly including Balkany hooted and made catcalls as Housing Minister Cécile Duflot, who was wearing a floral dress and speaking about an architecture project.

Reportedly, he took millions of public money in commissions to negotiate the exploits of the French multinational mining company Areva in Bakouma during Bozizé's presidency.