Marc Finaud was born in 1953 in Marseille (France). His mother had emigrated from Lithuania. He is married to Hélène Miszewski (whose parents had come from Poland), and has two children. He finished Secondary School in Marseille in 1970 and in Independence, Iowa (USA) in 1971. He holds the Diploma of the British Chamber of Commerce in France (1973) and the Certificate of Proficiency in English (With Merits) of the University of Cambridge, Great Britain (1974), as well as a Master's Degree in International Law of the University of Aix-en-Provence, France (1975) and he is a Graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (1977).

He joined the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1977, first at the Military Cooperation Division. In 1977-1978, he was Vice-Consul at the French Consulate-General in Leningrad (USSR). Back in Paris, he worked at the Directorate for Europe (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe -CSCE-) from 1979 to 1982. He was a member of the French Delegation to the CSCE Meeting in Madrid (1980-1982). In 1982-1983 he served as Chief of Staff of the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before being appointed First Secretary at the French Embassy in Warsaw, in charge of contacts with Solidarnosc and the Polish Catholic Church. In 1987-1988, he was the Secretary-General of the French Delegation to the CSCE Meeting in Vienna. In 1989-1993 he served as Second Counsellor at the French Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva (dealing with nuclear and outer space issues as well as conventional and biological weapons) and a member of the French Delegation to the First Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. From 1993 to 1996 he was the Head of the Information Department (and alternate spokesman) of the Foreign Ministry in Paris. In 1995-1996, he was a lecturer on arms control and disarmament for a post-graduate course at the Marne-la-Vallée University. In 1996 was appointed Deputy Head of Mission at the French Embassy in Tel Aviv (Israel) where he joined the Team of Negotiators of the EU Special Envoy to the Midddle East. He was transferred to Sydney as Consul-General for France in January, 2001, with jurisdiction over the whole of Australia. Since 1st September, 2004, he is a Faculty Member of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

Marc Finaud has been a Knight of the French National Order of Merit since 1998. Apart from French, he speaks English, Russian and Polish. He has published aphorisms in English about disarmament in the Geneva International Yearbook and articles on the Middle-East peace process.