Joël Giraud

Joël Giraud
Joël Giraud
	Joël Giraud in 2017
Member of the National Assembly; for Hautes-Alpes's 2nd constituency
	In office; 22 June 2022 – 9 June 2024
Preceded by	Claire Bouchet
	In office; 18 June 2002 – 26 August 2020
Preceded by	Patrick Ollier
Succeeded by	Claire Bouchet
Minister of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local Authorities
	In office; 5 March 2022 – 20 May 2022
President	Emmanuel Macron
Prime Minister	Jean Castex
Preceded by	Jacqueline Gourault
Succeeded by	Amélie de Montchalin
Secretary of State for Rurality
	In office; 26 July 2020 – 5 March 2022
President	Emmanuel Macron
Prime Minister	Jean Castex
Preceded by	Jean-Michel Baylet (indirectly)
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Mayor of L'Argentière-la-Bessée
	In office; 20 March 1989 – 29 July 2017
Preceded by	Auguste Toye
Succeeded by	Patrick Vigne
Personal details
Born	14 October 1959 (age 65); Gap, France
Political party	Renaissance (2016–present)
Other political; affiliations	Radical Party of the Left (1998–2017)
Alma mater	École nationale supérieure des postes, télégraphes et téléphones, ÉNA
Profession	Civil servant

Joël Giraud (French pronunciation: [ʒɔɛl ʒiʁo]; born 14 October 1959) is a French politician who briefly served as Minister of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local Authorities under Prime Minister Jean Castex in 2022. A member of both Renaissance (RE) and the Radical Movement (MR), he previously represented the 2nd constituency of the Hautes-Alpes department in the National Assembly from 2002 to 2020 and served as Secretary of State for Rurality from 2020 until 2022.^[1]

Political career

Career in local politics

An alumnus of the École nationale d'administration, Giraud first entered the municipal council of L'Argentière-la-Bessée in 1986. He held the mayorship of L'Argentière-la-Bessée from 1989 to 2017, as well as one of the vice presidencies of the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur under President Michel Vauzelle from 2004 to 2014.

Career in national politics

Elected to Parliament in Hautes-Alpes's 2nd constituency in 2002, he was reelected in 2007, 2012 and 2017. He is a former Secretary of the Economic Affairs Committee.^[2] He was a member of the Radical Party of the Left until 2017, when it was merged with the Radical Party into Radical Movement, which Giraud joined. He has also been a member of Renaissance since 2016.

In addition to his committee assignments, Giraud has been a member of the French delegation to the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly from 2019 to 2020 and again since 2022.^[3] He also chaired the French-Italian Parliamentary Friendship Group from 2012 to 2017.

Giraud was appointed to the Castex government in 2020 as Secretary of State for Rurality under Minister Jacqueline Gourault.^[4] Upon her appointment to the Constitutional Council in 2022, he succeeded her as Minister of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local Authorities.^[5]

Following the 2022 legislative election, Giraud stood as a candidate for the National Assembly's presidency;^[6] in an internal vote, he lost against Yaël Braun-Pivet.^[7]

On June 9, 2024, Joël Giraud announced that he was stopping his political career after the announcement of the dissolution of the National Assembly. Joël Giraud denounces a potential government of cohabitation “between the president and the extreme right”.^[8]