Having worked first as a mason and then as a compositor, he joined P. Dubois in the foundation of Le Globe which became in 1831 the official organ of the Saint-Simonian community, of which he became a prominent member.

In November of the same year, when Prosper Enfantin became leader of the Saint-Simonians and preached the enfranchisement of women and the functions of the couple-prêtre, Leroux separated himself from the sect.

[3] In 1843, he established at Boussac (Creuse) a printing association organized according to his systematic ideas, and founded the Revue sociale.

[4] An opponent of Louis Bonaparte, Leroux went into exile after the coup d'état of 1851, settling with his family in Jersey, where he pursued agricultural experiments and wrote his socialist poem La Grève de Samarez.

[1] Leroux's fundamental philosophical principle is that of what he calls the "triad"—a triplicity which he finds to pervade all things, which in God is "power, intelligence and love," in man "sensation, sentiment and knowledge".

[6] His religious doctrine is pantheistic; and, rejecting the belief in a future life as commonly conceived, he substitutes for it a theory of metempsychosis.

Leroux believed that Jewish-controlled banks had replaced the social institution of the churches with modern values which he had a negative view of: "We are destined to a future where individualism and egoism will triumph at the expense of the social good; the Jews, a people who epitomize individualism and egoism, are thus predestined to triumph over others."