The institution had become a symbol of privilege in a society where social mobility has broken down.
President Emmanuel Macron attended the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, as did predecessors François Hollande and Jacques Chirac.Credit...Yoan Valat/EPA, via Shutterstock
April 8, 2021
PARIS — There are elite schools and then there is ENA, the small French graduate college that has turned out presidents and prime ministers with such cookie-cutter consistency that it is no exaggeration to say France has been run by its “énarques.”
President Emmanuel Macron attended the Strasbourg-based finishing school for top civil servants. So did the two prime ministers he has appointed. So did his predecessor, François Hollande. So did Jacques Chirac. At a time of growing social fracture, no other institution has symbolized a clubby, mostly male French elitism as vividly as the Ecole Nationale d’Administration.