Chigot set up his own workshop in his native Limoges in 1907 and quickly became the leading French stained glass artist, rivaling Americans Louis Comfort Tiffany and John La Farge. Since the early Thirties of the 20th century Francis Chigot is considered the reformer of French stained-glass painting, in 1919 winning the Grand Prize at the Expositions Nationales d'Amiens (Amiens National Exposition). In 1920 he won the Grand Prize at the national expositions in Lille, Limoges, Tulle and Poitiers, in 1925 the Grand Prize for Art Déco Glass at the Exposition internationale d'arts décoratifs modernes de Paris (Paris International Exposition for Modern Decorative Arts) and again in 1931 at the Exposition Coloniale Internationale de Paris (Paris International Colonial Exposition).
In 1930/31 Francis Chigot executed a great number of the windows in the Notre Dame Church in Montréal.