Francen was born in 1888 in Tienen, Belgium, the son of a chief of police.

According to Russian sources, he attended opera classes in Odessa before 1914.

[citation needed] He worked in trade in Belgium before settling in Paris, where he trained in dramatic art under Paul Mounet.

His stage career in the 1920s included appearances in plays by Henri Bernstein, Georges Bataille and Edmond Rostand, which took him all over the world.

Among his memorable roles were as a ship's captain in Passage to Marseille (1944), an international intriguer in The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), and a French adventurer in San Antonio (1945).