Joseph Ruau (5 June 1865 – 29 September 1923) was a French lawyer and radical politician. He was deputy for

Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne (; oc, Nauta Garona, ; en, Upper Garonne) is a department in the Occitanie region of Southwestern France. Named after the river Garonne, which flows through the department. Its prefecture and main city is Toulouse, the country' ...

from 1897 to 1914, and was

Minister of Agriculture An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister ...

from 24 February 1905 to 2 November 1910. He was known for promoting agricultural cooperatives

Life

Early career

Joseph Ruau was born in Paris on 5 June 1865. He was grandson of the mathematician

Joseph Liouville Joseph Liouville (; ; 24 March 1809 – 8 September 1882) was a French mathematician and engineer. Life and work He was born in Saint-Omer in France on 24 March 1809. His parents were Claude-Joseph Liouville (an army officer) and Thérèse ...

and son of a director-general of the Mint. He obtained a doctorate in Law and joined the

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...

bar as an attorney. He was elected municipal councilor and mayor of

Aspet, Haute-Garonne Aspet (; oc, Aspèth) is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France. Gallery Aspet - Chapelle de Miègecoste et la tour du Chucaou.jpg, Chapel of Miègecoste and the medieval tower of Chucaou Aspet - Eglise saint Martin ...

, then general councilor for Aspet in the departmental assembly. Ruau was elected to the legislature as deputy for

in a byelection on 30 May 1897, and sat with the Radical Democrats. He was reelected in 1898, 1902, 1906 and for the last time in 1910. He was secretary of the Chamber twice, in 1898 and 1899, and rapporteur for the agriculture budget several times. As vice-president of the radical left he supported the governments of

Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau Pierre Marie René Ernest Waldeck-Rousseau (; 2 December 184610 August 1904) was a French Republican politician who served as the Prime Minister of France. Early life Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau was born in Nantes, Brittany. His father, René W ...

and

Émile Combes Émile Justin Louis Combes (; 6 September 183525 May 1921) was a French statesman and freemason who led the Bloc des gauches's cabinet from June 1902 to January 1905. Career Émile Combes was born in Roquecourbe, Tarn. He studied for the pri ...

Minister of Agriculture

Les Hommes de Jour 118 - 1910 - Joseph Ruau

Ruau was appointed

on 24 February 1905 in the cabinet of

Maurice Rouvier Maurice Rouvier (; 17 April 1842 – 7 June 1911) was a French statesman of the "Opportunist" faction, who served as the Prime Minister of France. He is best known for his financial policies and his unpopular policies designed to avoid a ruptur ...

and retained this office in the cabinets of

Ferdinand Sarrien Jean Marie Ferdinand Sarrien (; (15 October 1840 – 28 November 1915) was a French politician of the Third Republic. He was born in Bourbon-Lancy, Saône-et-Loire and died in Paris. He headed a cabinet supported by the ''Bloc des gauches'' (L ...

Georges Clemenceau Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (, also , ; 28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A key figure of the Independent Radicals, he was a ...

and

Aristide Briand Aristide Pierre Henri Briand (; 28 March 18627 March 1932) was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic. He is mainly remembered for his focus on international issues and reconciliat ...

until 2 November 1910. In 1906 he presented a law that organized long-term financing of agricultural cooperatives by the ''Crédit agricole'' banks. The cooperatives were defined as societies of people rather than of capital based on the principle of "one man, one vote" in which profits were shared. The state offered guarantees to the banks. Ruau issued a decree to regulate the organization and operation of horse racing. He proposed measures to assist farm laborers who had suffered work accidents and southern wine growers ruined by the fall in the price of wine that followed the losses due to phylloxera. On 5 July 1908 Ruau spoke at the second national conference on mutual credit and agricultural cooperation at

Blois Blois ( ; ) is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours. With 45,898 inhabitants by 2019, Blois is the most populated city of the ...

. He pointed out that the state was promoting a rural, property-owning democracy. This was true, but he gave an exaggerated view of the benefits of recent legislation in promoting agricultural syndicates and mutual aid societies. He overstated the influence of his government in promoting rural cooperation, which had been developing for over a century but still had far to go. He supported the creation in 1910 of a radical federation of capitalist farmers of the Parisian Basin in competition to the very conservative ''Union Centrale des Syndicats des Agriculteurs de France''.

Last years

Ruau suffered a physical and mental collapse due to the strain of office, and was placed in a nursing home in

Ivry-sur-Seine Ivry-sur-Seine () is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Paris's main Asian district, the Quartier Asiatique in the 13th arrondissement, borders the ...

Life

Early career

Minister of Agriculture

Last years

Publications

Notes

Sources

Further reading