The Ties That Bind

By George Russell

Chatting in the White House three weeks ago with Claude Cheysson, France's newly appointed Foreign Minister, President Reagan became sympathetic as he talked shop:

Reagan: I know what you must be going through with all those jobs unfilled and no one to turn to in your department.

Cheysson: No, sir, that's not a problem in France.

Reagan: What I mean is, you'll want to appoint your own deputies and ambassadors so that you can really be in charge.

Cheysson: No, seriously, Mr. President, it doesn't work that way in France. When I moved into the Quai d'Orsay, all the people were in place, and I just got down to work.

Reagan: Well, you're a lucky man.

The Mitterrand government will, of course, need far more than luck to implement its program of change for French society, but the Cheysson-Reagan exchange illuminates an important fact: so far as France's powerful administrative apparatus is concerned, there is less to the latest government switch than meets the eye. Whoever is running the country politically, bureaucratic power within the French civil service remains guarded by the graduates of a small number of closely knit, government-linked grandes ecoles (great schools), which also provide manpower for the national political parties, be they of the left, right or center. The bureaucratic system and the elite institutions that feed it are geared to political neutrality. Frenchmen both inside and outside the new Socialist government are now counting on that tradition to provide threads of continuity and stability at a time of political transition.

Even the highest levels of French politics tend to be knotted up in the same school ties. No fewer than eight members of Mitterrand's Socialist Cabinet, for example, are alumni of the vaunted Ecole Nationale d'Administration (E.N.A.), which also produced seven members of the outgoing Giscard government --including Valery Giscard d'Estaing, a top-ranked scholar of the class of '51. Foreign Minister Cheysson (class of '48) is an enarque, as products of the elite school are known, who previously held posts with the leftist Fourth Republic government of Pierre Mendes-France, then was Ambassador to Indonesia under Charles de Gaulle, and served as a commissioner of the European Community in the Giscard years. Fellow E.N.A. graduates are Planning Minister Michel Rocard ('58) and Budget Minister Laurent Fabius ('73), among others.

E.N.A., located in St.Germain-des-Pres, is the newest of the most prestigious grandes ecoles and currently the most influential. It was created by De Gaulle after World War II specifically to unite civil servants by providing them with a rigorous, state-supervised education, and to build up the bureaucratic self-esteem that was tarnished during the Nazi years. It accepts only 150 students annually. Almost invariably, graduates of E.N.A. are assured of getting top jobs in the civil service. Indeed, so well did De Gaulle's innovation flourish that technocrats like Giscard, Rocard and onetime French Premier Jacques Chirac were finally able to dominate the country's politics.

Others of the grandes ecoles date back to the French Revolution. The most illustrious is the Ecole Normale Superieure, which was founded in 1794 to "teach morals and shape the hearts of young republicans for the practice of private and public virtue." Only some 400 students a year are accepted. Among its graduates: Louis Pasteur, Jean-Paul Sartre, Georges Pompidou. Prior to World War II the school also produced such socialist luminaries as Jean Jaures and Leon Blum.

Then there is the Ecole Polytechnique, the science and engineering school molded by Napoleon, which accepts about 300 students each year. Graduates are required to spend one year in the military, and while many remain with the armed forces, more skip on to science and business, where they meet other pedigreed products of such other honored schools as the Ecole des hautes Etudes Commercials.

Getting into these gilded institutions is more than half the battle for success in France. American Psychologist Kenneth Keniston characterizes the time spent in special classes preparing for entrance examinations as a "period spent in the monastery." Each school has its own stiff requirements for an aspiring entrant, which are, says Keniston, "torture and mysterious rites of passage which test his qualifications for membership in the caste of sorcerers. Once they are accepted as full members, the other members will do everything possible to guarantee their success." Family ties also help, but only if the youngster has the brains to stay the grandes ecoles course. Still, hardly ever do any but the most undeniably gifted of the children of laborers or farmers pass through the institutions. The reason most do not qualify, defenders of the schools would argue, is that their home and school environments simply did not provide them with sufficient education. In fact, in 1977 fully 44% of E.N.A. students were the children of other bureaucrats.

Once he graduates, the high-level functionary enters a separate social world. He will have his own preferred clubs (Polo de Bagatelle, Racing Club de France, Cercle Interallie) and discussion groups. One of the latter that is likely to rise in popularity is the moderate leftist Club Jean Moulin, named for France's great hero of the Resistance, a kind of open forum for discussion of advanced political ideas.

If the official becomes restless at his job, he may practice what the French call pantouflage (literally, the act of putting on one's slippers), departing for another post, possibly in the large sector of industry nationalized by De Gaulle after liberation. Or he may decide to enter private industry for a while. Then he may shuttle back to the civil service again.

Because of the commanding role of the state in the French economy, such moves are not viewed as unusual by ordinary businessmen. One consequence of the functionary traffic, says Political Scientist Jean Blondel, author of The Government of France, is that "the private sector finds itself intellectually dependent on the civil service," rather than the other way around, as in the U.S.

Thus educated by the state and rewarded by society, French functionaries take their responsibilities seriously indeed. One result is their studied political neutrality. Says Bruno Delaye. a young Socialist who worked in the Ministry of Industry under the Giscard government and now serves Socialist Industry Minister Pierre Joxe: "I was never persecuted under the previous administration, although I could not say what I really thought about certain policies. Now that the Socialists are in power, functionaries who are people of the right will stay in place just as I did before. If some time in the future there is another change of government and the country votes massively for the right, I would accept that vote and work to carry out the policies of that government."

In fact, many younger members of the bureaucratic elite are sympathetic to Socialist policies--even though, in the long run, this may cost them some choice jobs. One of Mitterrand's priorities is to decentralize the bureaucracy, including the replacement of Paris-appointed local prefects in France's 96 departments by elected regional councils. For that task, Mitterrand will need the elite's cooperation, and he will probably get it. Says one E.N.A. official, explaining how graduates feel about working in an area of government that is slated for oblivion: "Their feeling is that there is always something to be learned there, and that the experience will be useful later in getting another post in regional administration." None of them doubt that there will always be jobs. --By George Russell.

Reported by Sandra Burton/Paris

With reporting by Sandra Burton/Paris

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