Caste out
By Jo Johnson
Published: December 17 2004 18:20 | Last updated: December 17 2004 18:20
The words carved deep into the stone gates of 13 Rue de l’Universite in Paris will soon be all that remains of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration. In the pale sunlight of a November afternoon, students who would once have become the future leaders of the nation gossip despondently in an almost deserted cafeteria. The legendary school that was once an indispensable rite of passage for all who aspired to power in post-war France has become an anachronistic embarrassment. A constant reminder of the failures of the French ruling class, it is no longer welcome in the capital. The reign of the enarques is coming to an end.
In January, the fabled training ground of the French political and business elite will be compelled to quit the Left Bank, the plush district by the Seine that is a byword for metropolitan sophistication, for the provincial torpor of Alsace. ENA’s Parisian premises will be sold and the school th