Jocelyn Caron is a Quebec alumnus of the National School of Administration (Promotion Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 2010-2011). He is now the general manager of an NGO that works to improve the financial condition of people with disabilities. His Twitter: @CaronJocelyn.
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I am from Quebec.
Exactly a decade ago, I finished my training at the National School of Administration (ENA).
Under the paneling of the Salon de l'Horloge at the Quai d'Orsay, my greatest satisfaction in receiving my diploma from the then Minister of Cooperation, Henri de Raincourt, was not to have made a mistake.
No, I hadn't got into debt and expatriated for nothing!
ENA, and by extension France, had kept its promises.
The thousand and one ideas received about this school had, for the most part, not materialized.
The Quebecker that I am was attracted to this institution because it is rare for a society to place public service at the top of the social ladder.
The ENA reflects this concern: it selects the best and gives them access to resources to complete their training.
Surrounded by comrades of all ideological leanings from all over the world, deliberation and questioning predominated, long before formatting within a supposed mold of single thought.
Back then, and still today, no school of ENA's caliber relied so heavily on stepping outside the classroom walls.
Imagine… at the ENA, some of the tests are collective: you have no choice but to reach a consensus with your colleagues to complete your exam in order to place yourself well in the ranking.
Much more than honoring the tradition of debates which prevails in France, this method of evaluation already puts us in the bath of what will happen in real life.
Also, this “
field
” was omnipresent there, because half of the training went through an internship.
Back then, and still today, no school of ENA's caliber relied so heavily on stepping outside the classroom walls.
From a night patrol in a sensitive neighborhood in the company of the police from the "
BAC
" to the basic work of the visa service of a prefecture, including a visit to a remand center in poor condition or that of veterinarians. state that are harassed by a slaughterhouse operator, the list of all the realities I have faced far exceeds any other course offered in public administration schools around the world.
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For a foreigner, the ENA is an excursion within an institution that works over time, at the service of France.
The values that we carry are unique, but anchored in the general interest.
The school also disseminates the French model of organization of the state which is much more emulated by other countries than its critics would like to admit.
Today director general of an NGO which works to improve the financial condition of people with disabilities, not a day goes by without the learning I received at ENA being useful to me, especially because we instilled in it empathy with the audiences served.
Likewise, I keep breaking the ears of my compatriots on the importance of public service for the achievement of the common well-being.
I know France well and am able to explain it sometimes better than the French who arrive in Montreal in search of Eldorado.
When, a few days after the terrible fire of Notre-Dame Cathedral, Emmanuel Macron announced his desire to abolish the ENA, I could not help but see the occurrence of another calamity for France .
Unfortunately for ingenuous souls like me who were trained at ENA and who believe that reforms can be designed in the general interest of the nation, it was to forget the electoral deadline which is fast approaching.
What could be better than a symbolic fight against the state and its servants to feed the populist beast?
But hey, stop sarcasm for a few moments: let's focus instead on the inescapable realities.
The management model of the senior civil service in France is the first in the OECD ranking.
To give flesh to an idea emerging from an answer to a question from a journalist, President Macron, yet already surrounded by the largest percentage of enarques in the history of the Fifth Republic, had commissioned the enarch Mr. Frédéric Thiriez in order to give him a report on reform proposals for the senior civil service.
Taking this opportunity quickly, a group of international alumni, including the author of this text, decided to contribute to the debate by submitting to Mr. Thiriez a study which analyzed the ENA from a global perspective. , detached from the endless arguments regularly heard in France.
The comparative study of former foreign students has brought to light a few facts that are often overlooked.
In particular, it was shown that the management model of the senior civil service in France was the first in the OECD ranking, that the ENA was much accessible than similar establishments in the West, that the social reproduction engendered by the The school was no more prevalent than elsewhere in Europe, that alumni only count for a minority of the senior civil service in France, etc.
In short, foreigners have come to challenge several received ideas constantly rehashed in France and which are terribly lacking in height of view.
However, the main thesis that the foreign alumni wanted to transmit that the National School of Administration is an effective tool of soft power ("
soft power
" in France ...), because it trains the servants of the State of Many countries.
ENA's expertise is so well recognized that it has 130 partnerships with States and institutions around the world.
Indeed, in each promotion of the ENA, approximately 30-35% of the pupils are not French.
Not that they later act as antennas in the service of France, but former foreign students can certainly help to better understand the latter and to be sensitive to its place in the conduct of world affairs.
An impressive number of former students are returning to France as diplomats or even ambassadors of their country.
Above all, senior civil service training schools modeled on the ENA are abundant across the globe, and not only in French-speaking countries: China, Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia have imitated the model. French.
ENA's expertise is so well recognized that it has 130 partnerships with States and institutions around the world.
Ultimately, the foreign alumni once again demonstrated a situation raised many times in the scientific literature about the ENA, namely that it was more appreciated outside the borders of France than her breast.
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It was therefore inevitable that the work carried out by Mr. Thiriez clings to this tangibility.
Its restitution logically proposed to save the “
ENA International
”
label in
order to take advantage of the international brand image of ENA, which, it was admitted from the outset, is enviable.
The discerning reader will have already understood the argument that was raised as a rhetorical question: how to maintain the aura of the School and its usefulness for France by abolishing it?
On the one hand, eliminating the ENA will destroy decades of patient work by sending the message all over the world, including France, that this school is worthless.
A real self-inflicted tragedy, because we cannot claim to safeguard a brand image by making tabula rasa: it is an impossible equation.
Emmanuel Macron, supposedly steeped in the modernism of marketing theories, knows this too well.
Let us also underline the dazzling irony in the fact that the liquidation of the ENA will be led by a minister, Ms. Amélie de Montchalin, who studied at the prestigious Harvard University.
Regardless of the future reforms of the curriculum of this august institution, which could not be more elitist, we could pledge our house that the minister will never be faced with the abolition of his alma mater: in the United States, we still value strength. of tradition.
Removing the ENA to "improve" it one year before the elections is above all a communication exercise, placed in the supreme interest of France.
On the other hand, nothing, but absolutely nothing, prevents the dream transformations while safeguarding the name of the School.
Because yes, like any institution, the ENA, but especially the senior civil service, could benefit from developments.
Several of the ideas announced are also relevant.
However, the abolition of the ENA has no causal link with the objectives pursued.
Would we see the Louvre or Versailles change its name because we are carrying out renovations, even major ones?
Would we replace the name of the Hôtel des Invalides on the grounds that the term “
invalid
” would become badly perceived socially?
Thus, the presidential intention is crystal clear: abolishing the ENA to “
improve
” it within one year of the elections is above all an exercise in communication, placed in the supreme interest of France.
This noble country, whose existence has meaning only in the long term, will gain nothing by affirming in the face of the world that its elites are formed in a school which deserves annihilation.
The disruption that Mr. Macron wishes to embody will be solely that of France's rich international action.
Fortunately, this sacking will ultimately require ratification by Parliament.
Let us hope that the Senate, the last real counterweight to the submissive empire of the Marchers, plays its role and tries to protect the image of France, its prestige and its diplomacy by safeguarding the School.
If, by misfortune, the disappearance of the ENA were to succeed, we would all attend, no matter where we are in the world, to another of these sessions of sadomasochism of which France holds the patent.
But it will be affublished with an aggravating asterisk: it will have been conducted for electoral communication purposes.
Its place of choice in the Pantheon of French autoflagellation would thus be engraved in stone.