World News: Macron Determined to Abolish The National School of Administration

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Category: World News - Europe

Published on Wednesday, 14 April 2021 13:50

Written by Olivier Longhi

The National School of Administration, replaced by the Institute of Public Service, has long focused on a set of criticisms aimed at denouncing laureates accused of forming an elitist system, a stigma producing anguish fueled by societal changes.

Announced as a key step, even a revolution, of Emmanuel Macron's five-year term, the abolition of the National School of Administration (ENA) has shaken up many future and former students of an institution founded in 1945 with the aim of training the high-ranking officials of the Republic.

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Quickly accused of being an administrative elite factory, the ENA has aggregated its supporters and detractors around it. The latter, which has increasingly numerous over the years, have essentially found themselves in the Yellow Jacket movement, the purveyors of an institution guilty in their eyes of being totally disconnected from the social and economic reality of the country.

At the same time, all days more accused of elitism, the ENA, which ends up being among the most prestigious institutions in the nation with the Higher Normal School, Polytechnic School, School of Magistracy, the School of the High Commissioner of the Navy, the Paris-Tech School of Mines and others, has gradually been accused of moving away in its recruitment of the middle classes, in contradiction with the values of the Republic.

Utility and Arcane

Forming high-level leaders with unanimously and globally recognized competences, the ENA has slowly seen its image deteriorate among a population that, while acknowledging its intrinsic usefulness, could no longer adhere to the logics developed by those who were going out, while serving the nation and the general interest that they were.

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This elite factory, which had become illegible to a majority of French people, fed doubts and mistrust to it. However, several questions now arise when the ENA dies and the next Institute of Public Service proudly stands up to replace it in form, certainly not in the substance.

Firstly, was the ENA really forming elites? If everyone can give his first answer, it seems obvious that trained in the workings and arcana of the functioning of the State, those who came out of it were distinguished by an acute knowledge of the complex administrative mechanics that prevail in France, knowledge that, let's face it, eludes many of us. In this, the ENA was evidence of elites.

Not social but first intellectual, which by their function became sociologically elites. Another criticism of the institution is the self-recruitment. With a very demanding entrance fee, the ENA decided     to select only those it considered to be the most suitable for the functions proposed by the state.

Community and Certainty

Again accused of elitism, but could it be otherwise, the National School of Administration, merely trained future servants of the community more often locked in the offices of ministries or prefectures than in prefabricated b-housing highways or works of art under construction.

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Overall, it appears that the stigmatization of the elites from the ENA, as well as other major republican institutions dedicated to the training of the servants of the state, also refers to the perception of what an elite is, how it is born and endures over time. In troubled times, like the one the planet is going through, the elites, at least those considered to be part of it, represent to their bodies a form of caste supposedly protected from the vagaries of everyday life and exempted from the rigors of everyday life.

Founded or not, this certainty, reinforced by the technocratization of an ancient state, is still firmly rooted in many mentalities.

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As the years pass and the crises, as some natures as they are with, it is likely that the question of the elites as well schematically summarized, is regularly convened. Not to accuse them of umpteenth evils but perhaps to atone the anxieties and anxieties of populations in need of answers and in search of responsible, proven or not.

Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist, recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, a press and publishing consultant, and a communications consultant.