After studying at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris and the École nationale d'administration (ENA), he joined the cabinet of Georges Pompidou, then Prime Minister, as a chargé de mission in 1962.

Deputy of Corrèze in the right-wing majority and Secretary of State from 1967, he was appointed Prime Minister by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1974, notably following the call of the 43. Two years later, maintaining poor relations with the latter, he resigned from Matignon and launched the Rally for the Republic (RPR). He became mayor of Paris in 1977 and ran in the 1981 presidential election, where he participated in the failure of the outgoing president.