According to "Le Monde", the president seeks to reform the training of senior officials, and would like to open more to the popular classes.
While the "big national debate" has ended, the executive must now provide solutions to the crisis of "yellow vests". And among the tracks under study, Emmanuel Macron is considering reforming the senior civil service, the "elite" that has often been criticized on roundabouts in recent months.
According to information from Le Monde on Friday, citing sources within the executive, the Elysee is seeking to open the schools of the upper civil service to the working classes. The idea is that these student promotions are more representative of the French population, while six out of ten students at Polytechnic are children of executives, seven out of ten at the ENA (National School of Administration).
Diversify the profile of senior officials
Positive discrimination. To do this, the Head of State, himself released from the ENA in 2004, would like to introduce some positive discrimination in the recruitment of students, as did Sciences Po Paris in 2001, by reserving a path access to candidates from popular backgrounds. At Sciences Po Paris, the "ZEP Conventions" reserve places for young people from Priority Education Zones, who pass a specific competition to enter the school. A "fairly effective device", according to a government source. Between 2005 and 2018, the fellowship rate went from 12% to 26%. "If we do not do a little positive discrimination, we will not succeed," conceded to the world a member of parliament LREM.
Experimentation at ENA? If the ENA has the same rate of scholarship holders, the number of children from privileged backgrounds still remain the majority, and the preparatory class "Equal Opportunities", launched in 2009, allowed only eight enarques only to join the administrative elite since its creation. According to the evening newspaper, the perimeter of the schools concerned by this future reform has not been fixed yet, but an experiment could initially concern the ENA and the Regional Institutes of Administration (IRA), in order to represent more rural areas in the senior civil service.
Proven on the ground
A base common to all senior officials. But access to the schools of the senior civil service is not the only path to study: the Elysee would also seek to ensure that future senior officials have "a common culture of the state" - which would be particularly failing among magistrates, according to an adviser to the executive. This could be taught via a "common crucible", for a period of one year, in a given place as the ENA, for example, before the students return to their respective schools in the following year.
No longer reserve access to large bodies. Another point of reform wished by Emmanuel Macron: to break the link between the ENA and the big bodies of the State. Today, the young Enarca can, for those who have obtained the highest ranking out of school, integrate the State Council, the Court of Auditors or the Inspectorate General of Finance. "You pass a contest at age 25, you come out well ranked, you enter a large body.It is a kind of annuity," sums up a close to the president. The idea now is to maintain the exit classification, but to join only a "basic body", such as the prefectural, diplomacy, Bercy, etc. Access to large bodies would only be possible after having proven itself on the ground.
However, as Le Monde points out, many questions remain unanswered and this reform project is causing a lot of "tension" within the government. While some ministers say they are worried about "killing the ENA", others say that "everything has to be jostled". Still, the strongest opposition will undoubtedly come in the first place from the great corps themselves, well introduced into the high circles of the state.