RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING OF HIGHER CIVIL SERVANTS IN FRANCE: THE ECOLE NATION ALE D'ADMINISTRATION.

L'École Nationale d'Administration was established by ordonnance on October 9, 1945. Michel Debrk, the architect of the ordonnance, wanted to change the previous system of recruitment and training of higher civil servants in France in two major ways. The first was a political change implying an increase in democracy and equality both for society at large and for the French civil service in particular. The second change was of a more technical nature and provided for a standardization of qualifications for all higher civil servants, a standardization however, at a qualitatively high level. The political aims of the 1945 reform proved difficult to achieve; despite subsequent tinkering, the degree of democratization and standardization of the higher civil service remains doubtful. As far as the technical aspects of the reform are concerned, however, ENA reached, indeed surpassed, the target initially set. Few people doubt the quality of the civil servants ENA turns out. And yet the upshot of ENA's insistence on a high level of factual knowledge coupled with intensive training has been the creation of an elite more likely to collaborate directly with ministers than to provide an efficiently functioning administration. Whether the ENA can therefore be termed a civil service college rather than a training ground for the exercise of power remains a debatable question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]