Macron unveils scheme to help less affluent students go to grandes écoles

Emmanuel Macron has announced a scheme to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds study at the country’s most elite establishment, the École nationale d’administration (ENA).

Under the new “talents” programme, six places at the Strasbourg-based school – a hothouse for France’s political class – will be dedicated to students from less affluent families.

Macron said the aim was to increase diversity at ENA and four other prestigious further education colleges taking part in the scheme.

In April 2019 after gilets jaunes protesters railed against inequality and the widely perceived arrogance of France’s political, social, business and administrative elite – the majority of them graduates from the country’s grandes écoles – Macron had vowed to close down ENA.

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However, after an outcry from its defenders, he has backed down.

Under the new programme, 1,000 places will be created in preparatory courses necessary to enter France’s top universities for students from socially or geographically disadvantaged zones from this year. They will be given financial aid and will pass specific entrance exams. From these, six of the best students will be chosen to study at ENA. Four other colleges will also accept six students from the preparatory courses.

Since it opened after the second world war, ENA, whose graduates, known as énarques, have access to top civil service jobs, has been seen as a pillar of French elitism. About 30% of the current intake are on scholarships, but only one is said to come from a working-class family, while 70% are reported to have at least one parent in an “intellectual job”, according to 20 Minutes.

The grandes écoles entrance exams are open to everyone and supposedly meritocratic, but studies show that ENA’s student intake, made up of about 80 French students and 20-30 foreign students every year, is dominated by the children of wealthy families.

Macron is the fourth president since the second world war to have graduated from the school; the others were Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Jacques Chirac and François Hollande. Georges Pompidou was a graduate of the similarly elite École normale supérieure (ENS) in Paris.