An influential French conservative and free market thinker, Rueff was born the son of a well known Parisian physician and studied economics and mathematics at the École Polytechnique and Sciences Po.

[1] An important economic advisor to President Charles de Gaulle, Rueff was also a major figure in the management of the French economy during the Great Depression.

Rueff published several works of political economy and philosophy during his lifetime, including L'Ordre Social, which appeared shortly after the Liberation of Paris.

After the war Rueff became one of the leading French members of the classical liberal Mont Pelerin Society, the president of the Inter-Allied Reparations Agency (IARA), and the minister of state of Monaco.

In the 1960s, Rueff became a major proponent of a return to the gold standard and criticised of the use of the dollar as a unit of reserve, which he warned would cause a worldwide inflation.