Ministers without having made the ENA, not so simple: "It is the most powerful network of the State apparatus"

So many hurdles to cross and energy to spend for the ministers deprived of the Holy Grail of the senior civil service, that is to say to have left the ENA, which Emmanuel Macron must announce the abolition.

"The ENA is the most powerful network in the state apparatus," says François de Rugy, former Minister of Ecological and Inclusive Transition (2018-2019).

Much more powerful, even in a ministry like Environment, than the X Mines or X Bridge.

»Main source of influence: competence.

"The enarques have a much better knowledge of the workings of the State than a minister, who often does nothing but pass", recognizes de Rugy.

"Better to know as much as them," underlines, for his part, Dominique Bussereau, several times Minister and Secretary of State under Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Unlike the polytechnicians or the centralists, the enarques are generalists, so they know a lot of things and they know them very well.

When I was Secretary of State for the Budget, I had to work at home every night and most of my nights for six months to get up to their level.

"

"You have to know how to play with their esprit de corps," learned Guillaume Garot, minister under François Hollande.

This is why it is useful to have enarques in ministerial offices.

Especially when you are not yourself.

"

The powerful secretary general of the government

At the heart of the government machine: the general secretariat of the government.

Almost always held by a Councilor of State, the cream of the enarchy.

“I knew two between 2014 and 2015, remembers Thierry Mandon, ex-secretary of state in charge of the reform of the public service, before taking the portfolio of higher education.

The first encouraged me in my desire for reform.

Which helped me.

The second told me:

simplification is good but it disrupts the work of the administration

.

"

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It was a powerful drag.

“We wanted to appoint, Elisabeth Borne, then Minister of Transport, and me, a new legal director who was a polytechnician,” recalls François de Rugy.

But Marc Guillaume, the secretary general of the government, who wanted it to be an enarque at all costs, never convened the ad hoc committee and our decision was never validated.

"

Because the power of influence of the enarchy is also and above all its power of appointment.

“More than a body, it is a network, insists François de Rugy.

As soon as I decided to change a post in the senior administration, it was immediately known and I received applications from enarques without any publicity.

"

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A power that would largely explain the inertia and disconnection of the ENA today.

“The problem is not the senior officials, but the architecture of the administration, complex and centralized, like a Gothic church, analyzes Thierry Mandon.

The enarques are too similar.

They have neither the training nor the listening skills necessary to have the reflexes of the field, to grasp the sociological diversities, to be in empathy.

"

Rely on local elected officials

To "move the lines", it is better, when you are a non-enarque minister, to give yourself the means.

“We are not at war with the enarques, but politicians must assert themselves in the face of resistance they may issue in the name of law or possible opposition on the ground, advises de Rugy.

We need to have our own networks and diversify our sources of information, especially with local elected officials, whom the enarques tend not to take into account.

"

To implement his reform on the French food sectors, Guillaume Garot preferred to replace his first chief of staff, who was enarque, by a prefect who did not come from "the School", but who, explains the former minister. , “Came from the field and had the necessary skills to deploy my action throughout the territory”.