François was the son of a gas and water-work manager. After a depressing high school period in The Hague, he found solace in Rein Leven, a sexual purity movement. Only 19 years old, he attended Dr Lucien von Römer's famous lecture "Ongekend Leed" (Unknown Sorrow), from which he returned reborn, having realized he was a homosexual, and that there were many thousands like him, entitled to happiness through love, just like anyone else.

Shortly afterwards, he went to The Netherlands East Indies, to begin his career as a civil servant. Bach in The Hague in 1908, he started writing, while supporting himself as a colonial civil servant in Holland. François was a pacifist and fought for the equal rights of homosexuals, as well as Eurasians.

His first clearly homosexual novel, Anders (Different, 1918) was written under the pseudonym "Charley van Heezen". It possessed a didactic tendency, even to the extent of having a happy ending. In 1922, under the same pen name, he published a second homosexual novel, Het Masker (The Mask), another key word for homosexuality.

All his life, François was a champion of justice, be it for homosexuals, Indonesians, or pacifists, courageously fighting to the end.