He said to himself “Oops, this is not possible!
», He blurted out, turning on the radio, this Thursday at noon.
Then Jules recovered, took his phone to write to his "colleagues" on the WhatsApp loop of the Prep'Ena of the University of Evry (Essonne), one of the preparatory classes set up in 2020 in the framework of the reform of the ENA to diversify the social and geographical background of the candidates.
At 25, the young man, a scholarship student, who intended to try for the second time next August the entrance examination in the prestigious school, lived like an explosion the announcement of the President of the Republic.
“We are all stunned, we are preparing a competition which we learn that it will no longer exist.
Me, I try to tell myself that they are all the same a little reasonable.
They aren't going to delete everything overnight, right?
He asks.
A student of rural and modest origin, Jules, 25, who was preparing for the ENA competition for the second time, said he was "stunned" by the announcement of Emmanuel Macron.
LP / Bérangère LEPETIT
A graduate of Centrale Supélec, the young engineer from Vigan, a town of 4,000 souls under the Gard sub-prefecture, had just submitted his application for the competition last week.
Today he tastes all the more bitter in his mouth because he feels, precisely, like most of his classmates, belonging to this small minority of students who are not in the seraglio.
“I am of rural and modest origin.
I am in the juice of the current reform, of this school which wants to open up to new profiles.
I have made a lot of sacrifices, both financial and in my private life, in recent years for this competition.
I live in a tiny 8 square meter studio in Paris and the lessons are remote.
"
A bad image more and more difficult to fight
Engineer in a training populated by former students of Sciences-Po, scholarship holder "all his life" he says, father mason and auxiliary mother of school life, Jules learned, all his schooling, to take side steps.
This did not prevent him, last year, from being on the verge of winning the competition.
“Last year, I was even in prep in Strasbourg, within the walls of the school, I went out in the evening with students from ENA.
We talked about this bad image of the school.
Most did not dare to say in society that they were at the ENA.
He himself has spent evenings "having to explain, justify himself" for taking this path with childhood friends, in his family.
“In the corridors, the modest students were very proud of it.
But those from a more upscale environment even managed to apologize for being there, ”assures Jules who, himself, considers himself cut out for the“ public service ”.
“I want to serve,” he repeats.
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Originally from a medium-sized provincial town, Anne * (
the first name has been changed
), in her thirties and mother of two children, also in Prep'Ena in Evry (Essonne), has set herself the goal of integrating the ENA next year.
On the phone, his voice trembles with emotion and anger.
“Every morning for months, I get up to go to my desk at 9 o'clock and I think about it, this competition, it carries me.
The whole family is behind me.
It's a culture of effort, but it's also good, too, ”, defends the young woman.
“In my class, we all have atypical profiles and that can be that, too, the ENA.
Why do you want to break all this?
She asks incredulously.
This Thursday evening, she expressed her incomprehension and "her concern" facing "a" political measure "she said, the project of a school" at a discount ".
“If we are to eliminate everything that is not working well in society, then why not also eliminate schools, hospitals?
»Anne quips.
“They say it's too elitist a school, but France needs an elite.
It's absurd.
It's as if we suddenly wanted to suppress the Miss France contest!
The candidates may be too formatted, but it is quite possible to try to open the contest to other types of beauty!
"