Volume 26, Number 16 · October 25, 1979
The Old Ecole Tie
By John Talbott
Elites in French Society: The Politics of Survival
by Ezra N. Suleiman
Princeton University Press, 299 pp., $9.75 (paper)
Class and Status in France: Economic Change and Social Immobility, 1945-1975
by Jane Marceau
Oxford University Press, 217 pp., $15.95
The young Frenchman near the top of his class at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration can expect to enter the Inspection des Finances, most prestigious of the grands corps de l'état. As a young inspecteur, he will be assigned to a series of jobs analyzing and administering economic and financial policy in government departments and ministries, ranging from the national bank to the national defense. He can look forward to becoming, perhaps in very short order, a close adviser to a cabinet minister or even to the prime minister. (Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is a graduate of the ENA; so was his first prime minister and current rival Jacques Chirac.)
Review, 3082 words
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