École Normale Supérieure
 École Normale Supérieure  (Graduate school)    | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
| Type | Private |
| Member of | Grande école |
The École normale supérieure; also known as ENS Paris) is one of the most selective and prestigious graduate schools in Paris, France. It is one of the French grandes écoles (higher education establishment outside the framework of the public university system).
It was initially conceived during the French Revolution and was intended to provide the Republic with a new body of professors, trained in the critical spirit and secular values of the Enlightenment. It has since developed into an institution which has become a platform for a select few of France's students to pursue careers in government and academia.
The school is very small in student numbers. Its core of students, who are called normaliens, are selected via a competitive exam called a concours (baccalaureate + 2 years) after a preparatory class. Two hundred normaliens are thus recruited every year, half of them in the sciences and the same number in the humanities, and receive a monthly stipend (around €1,350/month in 2018), and in exchange they sign a ten-year contract to work for the state.
The principal goal of ENS is the training of professors, researchers and public administrators. Among its alumni there are 14 Nobel Prize laureates including 8 in Physics (ENS has the highest proportion of Nobel laureates among its alumni of any institution worldwide, 12 Fields Medalists (the most of any university in the world), more than half the recipients of the CNRS's Gold Medal (France's highest scientific prize), several hundred members of the Institut de France, and scores of politicians and statesmen.
The ENS increasingly came to be seen by some as an antechamber to the École nationale d'administration, as more young students drawn to politics and public policy began to be attracted to it, such as future President of the Republic Georges Pompidou, Prime Ministers Alain Juppé and Laurent Fabius, and ministers such as Bruno Le Maire and Michel Sapin, respectively the current and former Ministers of Finance of France.
Alumni on Wikispooks
| Person | Born | Died | Nationality | Summary | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alexandre Adler | 23 September 1950 | 18 July 2023 | France | Journalist Historian Neoconservatism | French neoconservative academic and media pundit. |
| Raymond Aron | 14 March 1905 | 17 October 1983 | France | Journalist Philosopher Sociologist | French sociologist who attended 3 Bilderbergs from 1957 to 1966 |
| Nicolas Baverez | 8 May 1961 | France | Journalist Lawyer Editor | Bilderberg Steering committee. French proponent of transatlantic neoliberal globalization. Believes that for the masses, "time freed up by shorter working hours means conjugal violence - and alcoholism on top of that." | |
| Anne Bouverot | 21 March 1966 | France | Businessperson | CEO of company selling facial recognition and other biometric identification products. Attended 2018 Bilderberg. | |
| Jacques de Bourbon Busset | 27 April 1912 | 7 May 2001 | France | Author Politician | French diplomat and author, attended the 1957 October Bilderberg as former Deputy Head of Robert Schuman’s Private Office, where he aided in the development of the Schuman Plan. Later Vice President at CERN |
| Philippe Camus | 28 June 1948 | France | Businessperson | French Bilderberger who as Executive Co-Chairman of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company attended the 2003,4,5 Bilderbergs | |
| Laurent Fabius | 20 August 1946 | France | Politician | French politician who attended the 1994 and 2016 Bilderbergs | |
| Michel Foucault | 15 October 1926 | 25 June 1984 | France | Author Philosopher Academic Social critic | Celebrated philosopher and social critic |
| Fabrice Fries | 10 March 1960 | France | Businessperson | French CEO of Agence France-Presse. | |
| Jean-Marie Guéhenno | 30 October 1949 | France | Diplomat | French globalist diplomat with many ties to the making of defense and security policies. | |
| Bernard-Henri Lévy | 5 November 1948 | France | Propagandist | A French 'philosopher' who has created an intellectual alibi for every US/NATO intervention since the 1980s. Lévy is also a militant supporter and apologist for Zionism and the Israeli state. | |
| Arthur Mensch | 17 July 1992 | Engineer | "The European hope for AI", formerly of Google. Bilderberg/2024 | ||
| Georges Pompidou | 5 July 1911 | 2 April 1974 | France | Politician | General Manager of the Rothschild bank who was President of France from 1969 until his death in 1974 from a rare form of cancer. 1960 Bilderberg |
| Jean-Bernard Raimond | 6 February 1926 | 7 March 2016 | France | Politician | French Minister of Foreign Affairs 1986-1988 |
| Jean-François Revel | 19 January 1924 | 30 April 2006 | Journalist Public intellectual | ||
| Ivan Rogers | 1960 | Diplomat | Senior UK diplomat, UK Permanent Representative to the EU 2013-17 | ||
| Pierre Salmon | 30 November 1926 | 10 March 2005 | Belgium French? | Academic | Historian specializing in African history who attended 1977 Bilderberg, where the relevant subject was "North American and Western European attitudes towards the Third World's demands for restructuring the world order". |
| Michel Sapin | 9 April 1952 | France | |||
| Jean-Paul Sartre | 21 June 1905 | 15 April 1980 | Philosopher | ||
| Didier Sornette | 25 June 1957 | France | Researcher | French expert on risk management | |
| Pierre Uri | 20 November 1911 | 21 July 1992 | France | Economist | French economist who played a key role in the development of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, setting up the European Economic Community, the precursor to the European Union. Attended Bilderberg 1963, Bilderberg 1969 and Bilderberg 1975. |
