Michel Eddi has spent his entire career in the public sector. He joined the CNRS as a contract worker in 1975, and then the IPSN (Institut de protection et de sûreté nucléaire), which was at the time part of the CEA, where he worked on his PhD from 1977 to 1980. He stayed with the CEA as a research engineer until 1986, when he joined the Ministry of Research and Technology. In 1993, he joined CIRAD, initially as Deputy Director of Research until 1996, then as Secretary General from 1996 to 2001. He subsequently joined the Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Research, where he was Assistant to the Director of Research from 2001 to 2005. From 2005 onwards, Michel Eddi was Deputy Director General at INRA (Institut national de la recherche agronomique), in charge of research support. He returned to CIRAD as President Managing Director in March 2013.

Michel Eddi is a graduate of the École nationale supérieure de chimie de Lille (1974) and the École nationale supérieure d'électrotechnique et de génie physique at the Institut national polytechnique de Grenoble (1975), and was awarded a PhD in engineering by the University of Provence (Aix-Marseille-I) in 1980. He is also a former student of the École nationale d’administration (Michel de Montaigne class of 1988).