The following biographical information is taken from Jay Dowling's translator's preface to Francès's The Perception of Music (pp. ix-x):
"Robert Francès was born in Bursa, Turkey, in 1919. His early schooling was in Beauvais, north of Paris, and his secondary education was at the Lycée Rollin in Paris, where he received the baccalauréat in philosophy in 1938.
He enrolled at the Sorbonne and received his Licence de Philosophie in 1941 and the Diplome d'Etudes Supérieures in 1942.
While still a graduate student, Francès took part in the Resistance and was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. He was repatriated in 1945 and received the Médaille de la Résistance and the Croix de Guerre.
He completed his preliminary studies in 1947 and taught at Marseille until moving to a research post at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), where he completed his dissertation [published as La perception de la musique] in 1958.
In 1965 Francès joined the new Nanterre campus of the University of Paris, being named to the post of professor in 1968. He was instrumental in the establishment of research laboratories in the various departments of the new university and served as Associate Dean for Research and as a member of the Scientific Council of the university.
Francès remained active in research himself, founding the Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale et Différentielle at Nanterre, which he directs and which functions both as a research institute and as a graduate training facility.
He founded the Laboratoire de Psychologie de la Culture associated with CNRS, for which he was responsible until 1984, and he succeeded Etienne Souriau as Director of the Institut d'Esthétique et des Science de l'Art.
He served as President of the Société Française de Psychologie in 1971-72 and as Founding President of the International Society for Experimental Aesthetics from 1966 to 1971.
In addition to his contributions to the psychology of music, Francès has made significant contributions in the areas of the psychology of taste, perceptual development, and the psychology of work."
In 1988, Francès seminal work The Perception of Music was translated by Jay Dowling and published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
This document is available at http://dactyl.som.ohio-state.edu/Music829F/Biographies/Frances.html