Phaseolus vulgaris L. (French bean) is a vastly popular legume vegetable crop. Tender or green pods are consumed as vegetables and seeds as grain legumes. French bean is a highly nutritious vegetable and has many medicinal values such as anti-carcinogenic, anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, and other medicinal properties. French bean is cultivated in most countries except Antarctica and distributed to an altitude as high as 3000 meters. French bean originated in the Mesoamerican region and independently domesticated in the Andean and the Mesoamerican regions. The Andean and the Mesoamerican gene pools were evolved due to geographical and reproductive isolation or partial self-incompatibility and further differentiated into different races such as Mesoamerica, Durango, Garbancillo, Nueva Canada, Chile, and Peru. In this review, we discuss different breeding strategies followed in French bean, such as germplasm collection, conservation, characterization, and utilization through classical and marker-assisted breeding approaches. Studies related to linkage map construction, quantitative trait loci (QTL) identification, fine mapping of QTLs, identification of candidate genes, and marker-assisted selection have been reviewed in French bean. Application of next-generation sequencing technologies such as whole-genome sequencing, identification of candidate genes and assigning candidate genes into linkage map, transcriptome analysis for various traits, and genome-wide identification of markers was also studied. We also reviewed the application of genome-wide markers in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for the identification of functional markers and to enhance genetic gain through genomic selection in French bean.