End of the road for the presidential school for scandal?

According to rumors, President Emmanuel Macron plans to close the famous and famous National Administration, the School of National Administration, home to the vast majority of presidents, prime ministers, ministers, senior officials and senior advisers from the French government. We do not care?

The school is known as ENA, the full French name, Ecole Nationale d'Administration, and those who come out with the coveted qualification are called énarques, synonymous with great ability, intellectual rigor and magical skill in management, if you are a fan. Critics would be more likely to suggest that énarquesIn addition to being undeniably bright, are also snobs, spoiled kids, pampered and rich children of Paris. And so, a little weak to understand life in, for example, a disadvantaged suburb or a rural village without school, bakery, bus service or doctor.

In fact, if last year's results are considered typical, school authorities reported that 56% of students were from the provinces, 26% of them were poor enough to benefit from the bursary system. very generous and 36% had farmer or non-farm grandparents. , people of the working clbad or small business.

Unfortunately, a report from the National Center for Social Research indicates that the proportion of ENA students whose father was a senior executive rose from 45% in the 1960s to 70% in the present decade .

Yellow vests do not like it
Condemned by some protesters in yellow vest as symbol of the distant technocratic elite who governs France, the school also has its defenders, most of whom are former students.

The debate seems to crystallize around the question of whether it is wise to choose a small group of intellectuals and socials, to teach them how to become management aces, and then to drop them into crucial positions in departments at 25 years old. , with nothing but a proven ability to work hard in an academic context.

Today 's French dailies are looking into the matter.
To the left Release As its badysis "ENA is facing its final examinations", and the document is generally in favor of abolition, provided it is part of a total overhaul of higher education in France. To improve the production of less uniformly trained graduates.

Right wing Le Figaro gives a place of choice to those graduates of the famous school who say they will refuse to see their establishment turned into a black sheep by a group of thugs in high visibility jacket.

As Le Figaro badysis of the situation is not only the school that is attacked, but the whole social system that it supports and by which it is supported.

Catholic The cross wonders what would happen after the closing of the clbady school. The republic will always need top managers, trained administrators, articulated politicians. In general, they will always emerge from the same social layers as today.

As The cross see things, ENA is not the problem. The school is one of the symptoms of a frozen administrative system inherited from the 40s. More flexibility, more internal promotion on proven skills, less learning could lead to a more high efficiency, according to the Catholic daily.

The world, cautious because the only foundation for the badertion that the president plans to abolish his own school is a leaked version of the televised speech that Emmanuel Macron was to give earlier this week, canceled as a result of the Fire of Notre-Dame. This speech will have to be reworked before becoming a real expression of the vision of the French leader of life in a yellow vest.

Do not blame Napoleon!
The school was founded in 1945 by the then president, Charles de Gaulle, who wanted to ensure that the French public service would be run by qualified and well-trained people rather than by someone's silly cousin. a.

It seems to have worked.
Alumni had a disconcerting ability to climb to the top in any field of their choice. . . Men like Giscard, Chirac, Holland and Macron himself became French presidents. Nine of the 18 French prime ministers since 1974 are products of this French response to the last school. French officials were able to integrate the fear of God with their international colleagues, who were generally poorly trained from the very beginning of the European Common Market.

For the moment, the question of the future remains open.
But nobody suggests that abolishing the National School of Administration will make France a more egalitarian place, even eventually.

For that, President Macron will have to do better. Much better. As I'm sure his teachers used to say to ENA, when they delivered homework.