School for Leaders

An old wisecrack about France's prestigious civil service academy, L'Ecole Nationale d'Administration, has two graduating students bidding each other goodbye in the Paris courtyard, when one says to the other: "See you at the Elysee Palace in 20 years." That is no longer a joke. Having won last month's presidential election, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, one of the E.N.A.'s most brilliant graduates (class of '51), has not only taken over the Elysee but he also seems to have brought half of his old school with him.

Three top posts in Giscard's 15-member Cabinet are held by fellow E.N.A. alumni: Premier Jacques Chirac ('59), Interior Minister Michel Poniatowski ('48) and Finance Minister JeanPierre Fourcade ('54). In addition, Giscard's three key aides are also graduates, as is Chirac's chief adviser, Jacques Friedmann ('59). The appearance of so many men from E.N.A. at the levers of real political power has brought unaccustomed--and mostly unwanted--attention to the small but supremely influential school. Wryly commenting on France's apparent change from a republic to a tight little technocracy, the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchame limply saluted the new government by punning "Long live I'enarchie." Pierre Racine, the E.N.A.'s thoughtful, sagacious director, went so far as to pass the word to Giscard to go easy on the old-school ties lest he "give people the impression that the E.N.A. is running France."

Created by then President Charles de Gaulle only 29 years ago, the E.N.A. has established itself as a school for national leadership without peer in any other major Western country. Although Giscard is the first graduate to reach the presidency, other Enarques (as alumni are nicknamed) have played important roles in recent governments. Among them: former Foreign Minister Michel Jobert and ex-Finance Minister and Common Market Commission President Franc,ois-Xavier Ortoli, both class of '48. Below the Cabinet level, the school's 2,600 graduates hold many of the key jobs in the French bureaucracy, and their grip on the system is growing.

De Gaulle set up the school mainly to bring more professionalism and less social privilege to France's grand corps of administrators--until then the preserve of an elite drawn largely from upper-class products of Paris' celebrated Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques ("Sciences Po"). Budding bureaucrats, De Gaulle felt, should also have a broader background in legal, economic and administrative affairs than they could get at Sciences Po.

Each year some 2,200 freshly graduated university students and experienced civil servants compete for 140 places at the E.N.A. in a three-month-long series of written, oral and athletic examinations. The hopefuls may be asked to speak extemporaneously on subjects as varied as, say, peaceful coexistence, a particular French law or Egyptian art. An applicant's manner counts for as much as his knowledge.

Examiners once asked a candidate a question about the depth of the Danube -- and were impressed when he replied archly: "Under which bridge?" To prove that they are not merely bookstack grinds, applicants are asked to run 1,000 meters and swim 50 meters. The really well-rounded E.N.A. prospect earns extra points by "audacious tests": flying a glider, parachuting into the school court yard, or climbing the Alps.

Ten Years. Once in, the students are paid some $475 a month for the 29-month course. The first year they are likely to be sent out to a foreign embassy or a prefect's office in the provinces. "It's learning by doing," says Director Racine. Part of the second year is spent in private industry or working for a nationalized company. There is no formal curriculum, but the students are required to write papers on such issues as monetary reform or the 1973 Brandt-Brezhnev accord. They also attend frequent seminars, conducted by top civil servants, diplomats and businessmen.

Graduates are obliged to spend ten years working in the civil service. If an Enarque decides to quit before his term is up, he must pay the government the equivalent of two years of his current annual salary. Few leave -- although private firms hunting for prized E.N.A. alumni often offer to pay the penalty.

Now that its graduates have moved from big but largely invisible roles in the bureaucracy to real political power, the school itself is coming under attack. Leftists complain, with some justification, that the E.N.A. has fostered the same sort of elitism that De Gaulle wanted to break down since many of the applicants tend to be the bright, ambitious offspring of the well-to-do. Thus Jean-Pierre Cot, a leading Socialist, sees the school's success not as a triumph of excellence but "of a certain political class which has come out of a little, lofty fraction of the bourgeoisie."

Even some prominent Enarques have doubts about the school. Says Jean Saint-Geours ('49), head of the state-owned Credit Lyonnais Bank: "It is bad for a diversified modern nation like France to be governed by people all formed in the same mold. E.N.A. graduates are brilliant, no doubt about it, but they've not worked much in factories or sold many ties in the street." Which could be useful experience for the truly well-rounded student bureaucrat.

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