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178-558: The École normale supérieure – PSL ( French pronunciation: [ekɔl nɔʁmal sypeʁjœʁ] ; also known as ENS , Normale sup' , Ulm or ENS Paris ) is a grande école in Paris , France . It is one of the constituent members of Paris Sciences et Lettres University (PSL). Due to its selectivity, historical role, and influence within French society, the ENS is generally considered

356-414: A Legislative Body and Tribunate which were selected from indirectly elected candidates, and a Senate and Council of State which were effectively nominated by the executive. The new constitution was approved by plebiscite on 7 February 1800. The official count was over three million in favour and 1,562 against. Lucien, however, had doubled the count of the "yes" vote to give the false impression that

534-724: A Resistance hero and a major national leader during World War II. The institution has continued to be seen as a left-wing school since then. Later, as ENS came increasingly to be seen by some as an antechamber to the École nationale d'administration , 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 , former Ministers of Finance of France. Grande %C3%A9cole Similar to

712-716: A Seventh Coalition , which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died of stomach cancer in 1821, aged 51. Napoleon is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history and Napoleonic tactics are still studied at military schools worldwide. His legacy endures through the modernizing legal and administrative reforms he enacted in France and Western Europe, embodied in

890-525: A coup d'état that purged royalists from the legislative councils on 4 September—the Coup of 18 Fructidor . This left Barras and his republican allies in control again but more dependent upon Bonaparte who finalized peace terms with Austria by the Treaty of Campo Formio . Bonaparte returned to Paris on 5 December 1797 as a hero. He met Charles Maurice de Talleyrand , France's Foreign Minister, and took command of

1068-515: A normal school ), where, from all the parts of the Republic, citizens already educated in the useful sciences shall be called upon to learn, from the best professors in all the disciplines, the art of teaching." The inaugural course was given on 20 January 1795 and the last on 19 May of the same year at the Museum of Natural History . The goal of these courses was to train a body of teachers for all

1246-555: A " Programme Grande École " or "PGE" (generally translated into English as " Master in Management ", or "Grande École program"), which delivers a state-accredited diploma that is considerably more prestigious than a French master's degree in management delivered by university schools of management (IAE) or management faculties in the mainstream French university system. In France, only public Grandes écoles and universities can award licences, masters and doctorates. For example,

1424-838: A Fields medallist, though he was not a normalien , received a substantial part of his training at the school. These twelve former students have made ENS the institution with the most Fields medallist alumni of any institution worldwide. Former student Yves Meyer was also awarded the Abel prize. In addition, eight normaliens have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics : Claude Cohen-Tannoudji , Pierre-Gilles de Gennes , Albert Fert , Alfred Kastler , Gabriel Lippmann , Louis Néel , Jean Baptiste Perrin and Serge Haroche , while other ENS physicists include such major figures as Paul Langevin , famous for developing Langevin dynamics and

1602-871: A beginning for executive careers in public administration or business. Many French Nobel Prize and Fields Medal laureates were educated at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, Lyon or Paris-Saclay. There are four ENS: Until recently, unlike most other grandes écoles, écoles normales supérieures (ENS) did not award specific diplomas. Students who completed their curriculum were entitled to be known as "ENS alumni" or " normaliens ". The schools encourage their students to obtain university diplomas in partner institutions while providing extra classes and support. Many ENS students obtain more than one university diploma. Normaliens from France and other European Union countries are considered civil servants in training (unless they were recruited by parallel admission), and as such are paid

1780-552: A centre for literary criticism and theory, from one-time director Gustave Lanson to major twentieth-century figures of the field such as Paul Bénichou , Jean-Pierre Richard and Gérard Genette . The founder of the influential Négritude movement, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire , prepared and passed the entrance exam from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand where he was friends with future President of Senegal and fellow Négritude author Léopold Sédar Senghor , who failed

1958-445: A combination of amnesties for those who lay down their arms and brutal repression of those who continued to resist. Bonaparte also improved state finances by securing loans under a promise to defend private property, raising taxes on tobacco, alcohol and salt, and extracting levies from France's satellite republics. Bonaparte believed that the best way to secure his regime was by a victorious peace. In May 1800, he led an army across

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2136-484: A complex three-way struggle among royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists. He became a supporter of the Jacobins and joined the pro-French Corsican Republicans who opposed Paoli's policy and his aspirations to secede. He was given command over a battalion of Corsican volunteers and promoted to captain in the regular army in 1792, despite exceeding his leave of absence and a dispute between his volunteers and

2314-416: A contractual form. Visiting professors are teaching staff which hold a chair along another activity, e.g. a consultant or entrepreneur giving lectures once or twice a week. Guest professors are international professors who take part in special lectures, classes or programme. Grandes écoles can be classified into following broad categories: These schools train researchers and professors and may be

2492-598: A few) and Subsaharan Africa (in Nouakchott, Libreville, Yaoundé, Dakar, Niamey, Bangui for example). ENS maintains good relations and close links with these institutions. In 2005, ENS opened a branch at the East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai , whose French name was changed to École normale supérieure de l'Est de la Chine to reflect the agreement, and a joint doctoral program between

2670-473: A five-year curriculum directly after High school. The top three public engineering grandes écoles with standard admission fees (among 70), according to the French magazine L'Étudiant noir , are in 2023 the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (INSA Lyon), Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Toulouse (INSA Toulouse) and École des Mines de Douai (IMT Nord Europe). However,

2848-414: A former student at the school, to force the resignation of its director, Robert Flacelière and to appoint his contemporary Jean Bousquet as his successor . Both Flacelière and Bousquet were distinguished classicists. The school continued to expand and include new subjects, seeking to cover all the disciplines of natural and social sciences. In this manner, a new concours was opened in 1982 to reinforce

3026-667: A group of 167 scientists, with mathematicians, naturalists, chemists, and geodesists among them. Their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone , and their work was published in the Description de l'Égypte in 1809. En route to Egypt, Bonaparte reached Hospitaller Malta on 9 June 1798, then controlled by the Knights Hospitaller . Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim surrendered after token resistance, and Bonaparte captured an important naval base with

3204-474: A language laboratory for non-specialists offers courses in most major world languages to all the students. Additional centres of research and laboratories gravitate around the departments, which function as nodes of research. The emphasis is placed squarely on interdisciplinarity . Students who entered from a scientific concours (thus having mainly studied in their preparatory school maths , physics , and chemistry or biology) are encouraged to attend courses in

3382-429: A law of 1940, and some women were students at Ulm before this date, such as philosopher Simone Weil and classicist Jacqueline de Romilly . In 1985, after heated debates, the two were merged into a single entity with its main campus at the historic site at the rue d'Ulm in Paris . École normale supérieure is a grande école , a French institution of higher education that is separate from, but parallel and connected to

3560-483: A majority of those eligible to vote had approved the constitution. Historians have variously described Bonaparte's new regime as "dictatorship by plebiscite," "absolutist rule decked out in the spirit of the age," and "soft despotism." Local and regional administration was reformed to concentrate power in the central government, censorship was introduced, and most opposition newspapers were closed down to stifle dissent. Royalist and regional revolts were dealt with by

3738-516: A medallion of Minerva , who represents wisdom. A formalised version of this frontal piece is used as the school's emblem. The main site at 45 rue d'Ulm is organized around a central courtyard, the Cour aux Ernests. Another courtyard south of this one, the Cour Pasteur, separates the school from the apartment buildings of the rue Claude-Bernard. These buildings house the administrative functions of

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3916-441: A monthly salary in exchange for agreeing to serve France for ten years, including those years spent as students. Many engineering schools recruit most of their students who have completed their education in scientific preparatory classes (2 years of post-baccalaureat study). Many are also joint graduate schools from several regional universities, sometimes in association with other international higher education networks. In France,

4094-627: A plebiscite since the Revolution. France had regained her overseas colonies under Amiens but did not control them all. The French National Convention had voted to abolish slavery in February 1794, but, in May 1802, Bonaparte reintroduced it in all the recovered colonies except Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe which were under the control of rebel generals. A French military expedition under Antoine Richepanse regained control of Guadeloupe and slavery

4272-406: A public policy division, but some of its students have become leading statesmen and politicians. Third Republic Prime Ministers Jules Simon , Léon Blum , Édouard Herriot and Paul Painlevé as well as socialist leader Jean Jaurès were early examples of this trend. At this time, quite a few ENS former students and intellectuals were drawn to socialism , such as Pierre Brossolette who became

4450-418: A scholarship which covers their expenses. The students selected via the concours remain at the school for a length of time ranging from four to six years. Normaliens from France and other European Union countries are considered civil servants in training. Many students devote at least one of those years to the agrégation , which allows them to teach in high schools or universities. Faculty recruitment

4628-400: A second campus on Boulevard Jourdan (previously the women's college), in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, which is home to the school's research department of social sciences, law, economics and geography, as well as further student residences. The site has been undergoing major reconstruction since 2015. In 2017, President Francois Hollande inaugurated a new building on site, which is home to

4806-461: A second school was created on its model at Sèvres for girls in 1881, followed by other schools at Fontenay , Saint-Cloud (both of which later moved to Lyon , and Cachan ). The school's status evolved further at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1903 it was integrated into the University of Paris as a separate college, perhaps as a result of its exposure to national attention during

4984-566: A series of victories. The Republic, however, was bankrupt and the ineffective Directory was unpopular. Despite the failures in Egypt, Bonaparte returned to a hero's welcome. The Directory discussed Bonaparte's desertion but was too weak to punish him. Bonaparte formed an alliance with Talleyrand and leading members of the Council of Five Hundred and Directory: Lucien Bonaparte, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès , Roger Ducos and Joseph Fouché to overthrow

5162-756: A special partnership has 80 normaliens going to Pisa every year while half the class of the SNS spend a year at the Paris school. During its history and due to the far reach of the French Empire during the colonial era, many schools have been created around the world based on the ENS model, from Haiti (in Port-au-Prince ) to Vietnam (in Hanoi) to the Maghreb (in Tunis, Casablanca, Oran, and Rabat to name but

5340-510: A student at the school in 1879, around the same time as Théodule Ribot , a psychologist well known for developing Ribot's Law . Pierre Bourdieu , who studied dynamics of power in society and its transmission over generations and became a vocal critic of the French system of grandes écoles and notably ENS as the standard-bearer of that system, studied at ENS in the early 1950s, at the same time as his later intellectual adversary, individualist Raymond Boudon , both of them having taken and passed

5518-550: A student in the early 19th century. Two ENS philosophers won the Nobel Prize in Literature for their writings, Henri Bergson and Jean-Paul Sartre . Raymond Aron , the founder of French anti-communist thought in the 1960s and Sartre's great adversary, was a student from the same year as Sartre, and they were both near contemporaries of phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty , musicologist Vladimir Jankélévitch and historian of philosophy Maurice de Gandillac . In Sèvres , in

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5696-516: A temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings. In early 1799, he moved an army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee ). Bonaparte led these 13,000 French soldiers in the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish , Gaza , Jaffa , and Haifa . The attack on Jaffa was particularly brutal. Bonaparte discovered that many of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, so he ordered

5874-459: A two-year preparatory program in one of the CPGEs (see below) before taking a set of competitive national exams. Different exams are required by groups (called "banques") of different schools. The national exams are sets of written tests, given over the course of several weeks, that challenge the student on the intensive studies of the previous two years. During the summer, those students who succeed in

6052-531: A typical Corsican of the time. In January 1779, at age 9, Napoleon moved to the French mainland and enrolled at a religious school in Autun to improve his French (his mother tongue was the Corsican dialect of Italian). Although he eventually became fluent in French, he spoke with a Corsican accent and his French spelling was poor. In May, he transferred to the military academy at Brienne-le-Château where he

6230-456: A unique dual higher education system, with small and middle-sized specialized graduate schools operating alongside the traditional university system. Some fields of study are nearly exclusive to one part of this dual system, such as medicine in universités only, or architecture in écoles only. The grande école (and "prépa") system also exists in former French colonies, Switzerland, and Italy (Napoleon, as king of Italy for ten years, established

6408-485: Is a French network of 15 graduate schools of engineering within France's leading technological universities. All schools in the Group offer Master of Engineering degrees in various specialities: Napoleon I Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte ; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I , was a French military officer and statesman who rose to prominence during

6586-578: Is a non-profit organization. It uses a broad definition of grande école , which is not restricted to the school's selectivity or the prestige of the diploma awarded. The members of CGE have not made an official or "accepted" list of grandes écoles. For example, some engineering school members of the CGE cannot award state-recognized engineering degrees. The admissions process for grandes écoles differs greatly from those of other French universities. To be admitted into most French grandes écoles, most students study in

6764-610: Is generally regarded as the premier French institute for higher education and research, and it is currently ranked first among French universities by the ARWU and Times. Throughout its history, a sizeable number of ENS alumni, some of them known as normaliens , have become notable in many varied fields, both academic and otherwise, ranging from Louis Pasteur , the chemist and microbiologist famed for inventing pasteurisation , to philologist Georges Dumézil , novelist Julien Gracq and socialist Prime Minister Léon Blum . Évariste Galois ,

6942-557: Is located at the Jourdan campus for social science. This library has more than 150,000 books in the subjects it covers. The school also has specialised libraries in archeology, cognitive sciences, mathematics and computer science, theoretical physics. A recently unified natural sciences library was opened in 2013, aiming to bring together in a central place on rue d'Ulm the libraries of physics, chemistry, biology and geoscience. The school also features two specialised centres for documentation,

7120-469: Is now considered a classic. Poet Paul Celan and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Samuel Beckett were both teachers at the school. Jules Romains , the founder of Unanimism , essayists Paul Nizan and Robert Brasillach , novelist Nobel Prize in Literature winner Romain Rolland and poet Charles Péguy are a few other examples of major authors who were educated there. The school has also long been

7298-452: Is one of a few schools that still occupy a campus in the heart of Paris. The historic Paris ENS campus is located around the rue d'Ulm, the main building being at 45 rue d'Ulm in the 5th arrondissement of Paris , which was built by architect Alphonse de Gisors and given to ENS by law in 1841. Above the entrance door are sculptures of two female figures who respectively represent letters and sciences. They are portrayed sitting on either side of

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7476-524: Is selective, with between zero and one ENS professorship open per year. Faculty recruitments usually happen upon previous incumbent retirements. In informal ENS jargon, ENS full professors are popularly called PdPs (" professeurs des professeurs )" because traditionally ENS was created to educate future professors. Founded to train high school teachers through the agrégation , ENS is now an institution training researchers, professors, high-level civil servants, and business and political leaders. It focuses on

7654-513: Is that students choose their speciality more according to their interests and less according to their rank. (Indeed, the rank obtained after standard preparatory classes determines a list of schools with their specialities). On another note, the selection process during the first preparatory year is considered less stressful than in a standard first preparatory class, and the first year often offers broader scientific training since it does not specifically prepare students for competitions. Nevertheless,

7832-755: The Conspiration des poignards (Dagger plot) in October 1800 and the Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise two months later, gave him a pretext to arrest about 100 suspected Jacobins and royalists, some of whom were shot and many others deported to penal colonies. After a decade of war, France and Britain signed the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, bringing the Revolutionary Wars to an end. Under

8010-571: The Battle of Leipzig . The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. They exiled him to the Mediterranean island of Elba and restored the Bourbons to power . Ten months later, Napoleon escaped from Elba on a brig, landed in France with a thousand men, and marched on Paris, again taking control of the country. His opponents responded by forming

8188-515: The CNRS . The school has seven departments in its "Sciences" section: mathematics ; physics ; computer science ; chemistry ; biology ; geoscience ; and cognitive science . It also has eight departments in its "Letters" section: philosophy ; literature ; history ; classics ; social science ; economics (this section is the base of Paris School of Economics ); geography ; and art history and theory . In addition to these fifteen departments,

8366-581: The Central School of Arts and Manufactures produced 3,000 engineers and served as a model for most of the industrialized countries. Until 1864, a quarter of its students came from abroad. Conversely, the quality of French technicians astonished southeastern Europe, Italy, the Near East, and even Belgium. The system of grandes écoles expanded, enriched by the Ecole des Eaux et Forêts at Nancy in 1826,

8544-632: The Collège de France was a student a few years ahead of the founder of deconstruction , Jacques Derrida and the thinker of individuation Gilbert Simondon . The tradition continues today through such philosophers as Jacques Bouveresse , Jean-Luc Marion , Claudine Tiercelin , Francis Wolff and Quentin Meillassoux , and the school has also produced prominent public intellectuals like Stéphane Hessel and such New Philosophers as Bernard-Henri Lévy and Benny Lévy . Contributing to ENS's role as

8722-558: The Dreyfus Affair , in which its librarian Lucien Herr and his disciples, who included the socialist politician Jean Jaurès and the writers Charles Péguy and Romain Rolland spearheaded the campaign to overturn the wrongful conviction pronounced against Captain Alfred Dreyfus . The first female student – Marguerite Rouvière – was accepted in 1910, which made headline news in France and polarised opinion. The ranks of

8900-540: The EHESS , the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique (ENSAE) and the École des Ponts . This project seeks to create a unified Master's-level economics school in Paris. The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa was founded in 1810 as a branch of the École normale supérieure by Napoleon and later gained independence. ENS and its Italian twin have retained very close links since this time and since 1988

9078-470: The Ecole des Arts industriels at Lille in 1854, the Ecole centrale lyonnaise in 1857, and the National Institute of Agronomy , reconstituted in 1876 after a fruitless attempt between 1848 and 1855. Finally, the training of the lower grades of staff, who might today be called ‘production engineers’, was assured to an even greater extent by the development of Ecoles d’Arts et métiers , of which

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9256-577: The Fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, Bonaparte's association with leading Jacobins made him politically suspect to the new regime. He was arrested on 9 August but released two weeks later. He was asked to draw up plans to attack Italian positions as part of France's war with Austria and, in March 1795, he took part in an expedition to take back Corsica from the British, but the French were repulsed by

9434-681: The Fields Medal , often called the "Nobel Prize for mathematics", eleven normaliens have been recipients, contributing to ENS's reputation as one of the world's foremost training grounds for mathematicians: Laurent Schwartz , Jean-Pierre Serre (also a recipient of the inaugural Abel Prize in 2003), René Thom , Alain Connes , Jean-Christophe Yoccoz , Pierre-Louis Lions , Laurent Lafforgue , Wendelin Werner , Cédric Villani , Ngô Bảo Châu and Hugo Duminil-Copin . Alexander Grothendieck , also

9612-694: The French Republican calendar —he fired on the rebels with canister rounds (later called: "a whiff of grapeshot "). About 300 to 1,400 rebels died in the uprising. Bonaparte's role in defeating the rebellion earned him and his family the patronage of the new government, the French Directory . On 26 October, he was promoted to commander of the Army of the Interior, and in January 1796 he

9790-647: The French Revolution and led a series of successful campaigns across Europe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1796 to 1815. He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814, and briefly again in 1815. Born on the island of Corsica to a family of Italian origin, Napoleon moved to mainland France in 1779 and

9968-540: The French Revolution , when the National Convention created the École normale supérieure , the mathematician Gaspard Monge and Lazare Carnot created the École centrale des travaux publics (later the École polytechnique ), and the abbot Henri Grégoire created the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers . The model was probably the military academy at Mézières , of which Monge

10146-625: The Grandes écoles award an " Diplôme d'Ingénieur ", similar to a Master of Engineering degree. This engineer's degree , required to use the engineer title in France, is strictly protected and can only be awarded by state-accredited Grandes écoles , via the Engineering Accreditation Commission (CTI). In France, the majority of business schools are private or semi-private. For their programs, business schools that are Grandes écoles (like HEC or ESCP ) offer

10324-951: The Ivy League in the United States, Oxbridge in the UK, and C9 League in China, Grandes écoles are elite academic institutions that admit students through an extremely competitive process. Grandes écoles primarily admit students based on their national ranking in written and oral exams called concours , which are organized annually by the French Ministry of Education . While anyone can register for concours , successful candidates have almost always completed two or three years of dedicated preparatory classes ( classes préparatoires ) prior to admission. As they are separate from universities, most of them do not deliver

10502-519: The Langevin equation . Alumnus Paul Sabatier won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry . Its position as a leading institution in the training of the critical spirit has made ENS into France's premier training ground for future philosophers and producers of what has been called by some "French theory". Its position as a philosophical birthplace can be traced back to its very beginnings, with Victor Cousin

10680-593: The Maison Bonaparte home in Ajaccio , where Napoleon was born on 15 August 1769. He had an elder brother, Joseph , and, later, six younger siblings: Lucien , Elisa , Louis , Pauline , Caroline , and Jérôme . Five more siblings were stillborn or did not survive infancy. Napoleon was baptized as a Catholic , under the name Napoleone di Buonaparte . In his youth, his name was also spelled as Nabulione , Nabulio , Napolionne , and Napulione . Napoleon

10858-543: The Napoleonic Code . He established a system of public education, abolished the vestiges of feudalism , emancipated Jews and other religious minorities, abolished the Spanish Inquisition , enacted the principle of equality before the law for an emerging middle class, and centralized state power at the expense of religious authorities. His conquests acted as a catalyst for political change and

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11036-410: The Second World War , in which some of its students were players in the Resistance , the school became more visible and increasingly perceived as a bastion of the communist left . Many of its students belonged to the French Communist Party . This leftist tradition continued into the 1960s and 1970s during which an important fraction of French Maoists came from ENS. In 1953 it was made autonomous from

11214-443: The Sultan of Mysore , an enemy of the British. Bonaparte assured the Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions". The Directory agreed in order to secure a trade route to the Indian subcontinent . In May 1798, Bonaparte was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences . His Egyptian expedition included

11392-566: The University of Beijing in China, Freie Universität Berlin in Germany, the universities of Cambridge , Edinburgh and Oxford in the United Kingdom, Trinity College in Dublin, McGill University in Montréal, and the universities at Berkeley , Columbia , Cornell , Harvard , Princeton , Stanford , and Yale in the United States. Since 2001, the École normale supérieure's internet portal, called Diffusion des savoirs ("Spreading knowledge") has offered access to more than 2000 recordings of conferences and seminars that have taken place at

11570-437: The University of Paris , but it was perceived ambivalently by the authorities as a nexus of protest, particularly due to the teachings delivered there by such controversial figures as political philosopher Louis Althusser . As of now, by law, ENS comes under the direct authority of the Minister for Higher Education and Research . The fallout from the May 1968 protests caused President of the Republic Georges Pompidou , himself

11748-409: The agrégation by expanding the duration of study to three years, and was divided into its present-day Sciences and Letters divisions. In 1847 the school moved into its current quarters at the rue d'Ulm, next to the Panthéon in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. This helped it gain some stability, which was further established under the direction of Louis Pasteur . Having been recognised as a success,

11926-437: The agrégation in philosophy at the end of their studies at the school. Other major ENS sociologists and anthropologists include Maurice Halbwachs , Alain Touraine and Philippe Descola . The school also has a tradition of geography, with the founder of modern French geography and of the French School of Geopolitics Paul Vidal de La Blache having been a student at the school starting in 1863. As for economics, its history at

12104-447: The piston engine , one of the centrepieces of the Industrial Revolution ): 3. Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) network is the largest engineer training group in France, with 16,700+ students, administered by the French Ministry of National Education . It consists of grandes écoles distributed throughout mainland France: 4. National Polytechnic Institutes ( INP ) 5. Réseau Polytech schools of engineering ,

12282-461: The trifunctional hypothesis of social class in ancient societies. The school has a long-standing reputation as a training ground for men and women of letters, and its alumni include novelist and dramatist Jean Giraudoux , many of whose plays among which The Trojan War Will Not Take Place and Amphitryon 38 have become staple elements of the French theatrical repertory; and acclaimed novelist Julien Gracq , whose 1951 novel The Opposing Shore

12460-407: The École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), the Paris-Sorbonne University , the Panthéon-Sorbonne University , HEC Paris and ESSEC Business School in particular to deliver joint diplomas to a certain number of students who have followed courses shared between the two institutions. It is also the main partner in the Paris School of Economics project which it has launched along with

12638-462: The 17th century in France, such as the école de l'artillerie de Douai (established in 1697) and the later école du génie de Mézières (established in 1748), wherein mathematics, chemistry and sciences were already a major part of the curriculum taught by first-rank scientists such as Pierre-Simon Laplace , Charles Étienne Louis Camus , Étienne Bézout , Sylvestre-François Lacroix , Siméon Denis Poisson , Gaspard Monge (most of whom were later to form

12816-608: The Army of England for the planned invasion of Britain. After two months of planning, Bonaparte decided that France's naval strength was not yet sufficient to confront the British Royal Navy. He decided on a military expedition to seize Egypt and thereby undermine Britain's access to its trade interests in India . Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East and join forces with Tipu Sultan ,

12994-640: The Austrians again challenged France in the War of the Fifth Coalition , in which Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after winning the Battle of Wagram . In summer 1812, he launched an invasion of Russia , which ended in the catastrophic retreat of his army that winter. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russia in the War of the Sixth Coalition , in which Napoleon was decisively defeated at

13172-469: The Austrians at Hohenlinden in December. The Austrians capitulated and signed the Treaty of Lunéville in February 1801. The treaty reaffirmed and expanded earlier French gains at Campo Formio. Bonaparte's triumph at Marengo increased his popularity and political authority. However, he still faced royalist plots and feared Jacobin influence, especially in the army. Several assassination plots, including

13350-891: The Austrians sued for peace. The preliminary peace of Leoben , signed on 18 April, gave France control of most of northern Italy and the Low Countries , and promised to partition the Republic of Venice with Austria. Bonaparte marched on Venice and forced its surrender , ending 1,100 years of Venetian independence. He authorized the French to loot treasures such as the Horses of Saint Mark . In this Italian campaign, Bonaparte's army captured 150,000 prisoners, 540 cannons, and 170 standards . The French army fought 67 actions and won 18 pitched battles through superior artillery technology and Bonaparte's tactics. Bonaparte extracted an estimated 45 million French pounds from Italy during

13528-584: The Austrians, laying siege to Mantua . The Austrians launched offensives against the French to break the siege, but Bonaparte defeated every relief effort, winning the Battle of Castiglione , the Battle of Bassano , the Battle of Arcole , and the Battle of Rivoli . The French triumph at Rivoli in January 1797 led to the collapse of the Austrian position in Italy. At Rivoli, Austria lost 43% of its soldiers dead, wounded or taken prisoner. The French then invaded

13706-529: The Bibliothèque des Archives Husserl , and the Centre d'Archives de Philosophie, d'Histoire et d'Edition des Sciences. Two other écoles normales supérieures were established in the 20th century: the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (sciences and humanities); and the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay (pure and applied sciences, sociology, economics and management, English language). More recently,

13884-588: The Corsican assembly had condemned him and his family, the Buonapartes fled to Toulon on the French mainland. Bonaparte returned to his regiment in Nice and was made captain of a coastal battery. In July 1793, he published a pamphlet, Le souper de Beaucaire (Supper at Beaucaire ), demonstrating his support for the National Convention which was now heavily influenced by the Jacobins. In September, with

14062-483: The ENS economics department, the school's social science library, and the Paris School of Economics , an ENS project. The school has a secondary site in the suburb of Montrouge , which houses some of its laboratories alongside those of Paris Descartes University . It features green areas and sporting facilities as well as some 200 student rooms. A fourth site in the town of Villejuif, south of Paris, hosts some of

14240-453: The ENS for young women, philosopher and mystic Simone Weil was accomplishing her years of study at the same time. Jean Hyppolite , the founder of Hegelian studies in France, also studied at the school at this time and later influenced many of its students. Epistemologists Georges Canguilhem and Jean Cavaillès , the latter also known as a Résistance hero, were educated at ENS as well. Later, Marxist political thinker Louis Althusser

14418-453: The ENS system is different from that of most higher education systems outside France, thus making it difficult to compare with foreign institutions; in particular, it is much smaller than a typical English collegiate university. It is ranked as the second "small university" worldwide behind California Institute of Technology by the 2016 Times Higher Education Smaller Universities Ranking (a ranking of institutions of fewer than 5000 students). It

14596-591: The European Bologna system . In 2007, the OECD remarked in a report that "their diplomas do not fit easily into the increasingly standardised international nomenclature for academic study ... Instead, students effectively study for five years and are then awarded a masters degree, with no intermediate diploma". However, some Grandes écoles have decided to adopt the standard, European Bologna system of diplomas recently in order to better integrate themselves in

14774-621: The First Coalition , scoring decisive victories and becoming a national hero. He led an invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798 which served as a springboard to political power. In November 1799, Napoleon engineered the Coup of 18 Brumaire against the Directory , and became First Consul of the Republic. He won the Battle of Marengo in 1800, which secured France's victory in the War of the Second Coalition , and in 1803 sold

14952-664: The Fourth Coalition , Napoleon defeated Prussia at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806, marched his Grande Armée into Eastern Europe, and defeated the Russians in 1807 at the Battle of Friedland . Seeking to extend his trade embargo against Britain , Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and installed his brother Joseph as King of Spain in 1808, provoking the Peninsular War . In 1809,

15130-596: The French garrison in Ajaccio. In February 1793, Bonaparte took part in the failed French expedition to Sardinia . Following allegations that Paoli had sabotaged the expedition and that his regime was corrupt and incompetent, the French National Convention outlawed him. In early June, Bonaparte and 400 French troops failed to capture Ajaccio from Corsican volunteers and the island was now controlled by Paoli's supporters. When Bonaparte learned that

15308-681: The French system there). The influence of this system was strong in the 19th century throughout the world, as can be seen in the original names of many world universities (Caltech was originally "Polytechnic Institute", as was ETH Zürich—"the Polytechnicum"—in addition to the Polytechnique in Montréal. Some institutions in China, Russia, the UK, and the US also have names of some French grandes écoles, adapted to their languages). The success of

15486-561: The French who were gradually driven back. Late in the afternoon, however, a full division under Desaix arrived on the field and reversed the tide of the battle. The Austrian army fled leaving behind 14,000 casualties. The following day, the Austrians signed an armistice and agreed to abandon Northern Italy. When peace negotiations with Austria stalled, Bonaparte reopened hostilities in November. A French army under General Moreau swept through Bavaria and scored an overwhelming victory over

15664-683: The German and Anglo-Saxon university models from the late 19th century reduced the influence of the French system in some of the English-speaking world. There is no standard definition or official list of grandes écoles. The term grande école is not employed in the French education code, with the exception of a quotation in the social statistics. It generally employs the expression of " écoles supérieures " to indicate higher educational institutions that are not universities. The Conférence des grandes écoles (CGE) ( Grandes Écoles Conference)

15842-689: The Italian form "Napoleone di Buonaparte." Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of the Army of Italy. He went on the offensive, hoping to defeat the Kingdom of Sardinia in Piedmont before their Austrian allies could intervene. In a series of victories during the Montenotte campaign , he knocked the Piedmontese out of the war in two weeks. The French then focused on

16020-610: The Kingdom of Sardinia. The French army carried out Bonaparte's plan in the Second Battle of Saorgio in April 1794, and then advanced to seize Ormea in the mountains. From Ormea, it headed west to outflank the Austro-Sardinian positions around Saorge . After this campaign, Augustin Robespierre sent Bonaparte on a mission to the Republic of Genoa to determine the country's intentions towards France. After

16198-549: The Louis Pasteur villa, situated close by ENS, which welcomes foreign researchers for extended stays. It has also contributed to financing several positions for scientists in ENS laboratories, for instance in research on telecom network security with France Télécom and on "artificial vision" with the Airbus foundation. In France, ENS has been regarded since the late 19th century as one of foremost grandes écoles . However,

16376-515: The Mamluks' Egyptian cavalry. Twenty-nine French and approximately 2,000 Egyptians were killed. The victory boosted the French army's morale. On 1 August 1798, the British fleet under Sir Horatio Nelson captured or destroyed all but two vessels of the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile , preventing Bonaparte from strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean. His army had succeeded in

16554-710: The Royal Navy. From 1794, Bonaparte was in a romantic relationship with Désirée Clary whose sister Julie Clary had married Bonaparte's elder brother Joseph. In April 1795, Bonaparte was assigned to the Army of the West , which was engaged in the War in the Vendée —a civil war and royalist counter-revolution in the Vendée region. As an infantry command, it was a demotion from artillery general and he pleaded poor health to avoid

16732-546: The Swiss Alps into Italy, aiming to surprise the Austrian armies that had reoccupied the peninsula when Bonaparte was still in Egypt. After a difficult crossing over the Alps, the French captured Milan on 2 June. The French confronted an Austrian army under Michael von Melas at Marengo on 14 June. The Austrians fielded about 30,000 soldiers while Bonaparte commanded 24,000 troops. The Austrians' initial attack surprised

16910-547: The Vendée campaign. He sought a transfer to Constantinople to offer his services to Sultan Selim III . The request was eventually granted, but he never took up the post. On 3 October, royalists in Paris declared a rebellion against the National Convention. Paul Barras , a leader of the Thermidorian Reaction , knew of Bonaparte's military exploits at Toulon and made him second in command of

17088-513: The association of training and research, with an emphasis on freedom of curriculum. The school's resources are equally divided between its "Letters" (social and human sciences and literature) and its "Sciences" (natural sciences and mathematics) sections. The school's fifteen departments and its thirty-five units of research ( unités mixtes de recherches or UMR in French) work in close coordination with other public French research institutions such as

17266-401: The brother of fellow student, philosopher Simone Weil ). This rejuvenation continued into the 1930s, as exemplified by the 1935 launch of the influential Nicolas Bourbaki project, whose work permeated the field of mathematics throughout the 20th century. In 1940 former student Henri Cartan was appointed professor at the school like his father Élie Cartan , carrying the school's importance in

17444-452: The campaign, another 12 million pounds in precious metals and jewels, and more than 300 paintings and sculptures. During the campaign, Bonaparte became increasingly influential in French politics. He founded two newspapers: one for the troops in his army and one for circulation in France. The royalists attacked him for looting Italy and warned that he might become a dictator. Bonaparte sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris to support

17622-414: The campus life and representing the school during symposia. Their contractual number of working hours is defined at the beginning of each academic year in a lump sum workload timetable. Full-time faculty/teaching are in charge of giving lectures, but also shoulder pedagogic coordination. As such, they are deeply involved in their respective campus' life and accountable for the teaching quality as well as

17800-454: The centre of the structuralist school of thought, alongside Althusser and Foucault, major psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Jacques Lacan taught there in the 1960s, notably giving his course, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis , in 1964. This period of his teaching is significant as it is the one in which it acquired "a much larger audience" than before and represented a "change of front" from his previous work. During this time

17978-570: The civil rights of women and children in France, reintroduced a hereditary monarchy and nobility, and violently repressed popular uprisings against his rule. Napoleon's family was of Italian origin. His paternal ancestors, the Buonapartes, descended from a minor Tuscan noble family who emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century and his maternal ancestors, the Ramolinos, descended from a noble family from Lombardy . Napoleon's parents, Carlo Maria Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino , lived in

18156-542: The commission on public education. The École normale was intended as the core of a planned centralised national education system. The project was also conceived as a way to reestablish trust between the Republic and the country's elites, which had been alienated to some degree by the Reign of Terror . The decree establishing the school, issued on 30 October 1794 ( 9 brumaire an III ), states in its first article that "There will be established in Paris an école normale (literally,

18334-432: The development of nation states . However, he is controversial due to his role in wars which devastated Europe, his looting of conquered territories, and his mixed record on civil rights. He abolished the free press, ended directly elected representative government, exiled and jailed critics of his regime, reinstated slavery in France's colonies except for Haiti , banned the entry of blacks and mulattos into France, reduced

18512-579: The development of their subject, starting with Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges , Ernest Lavisse and Jérôme Carcopino , all students of the school in the second half of the nineteenth century who later would come back to direct it. Around the turn of the century two men who would become the founders of the Annales School , Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre , studied at the school. Jacqueline de Romilly and Pierre Grimal , respectively historians of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome , were both students at

18690-466: The economy recovering, Bonaparte became increasingly popular, both domestically and abroad. In May 1802, the Council of State recommended a new plebiscite asking the French people to make "Napoleon Bonaparte" Consul for life. (It was the first time his first name was officially used by the regime.) About 3.6 million voted "yes" and 8,374 "no." 40%-60% of eligible Frenchmen voted, the highest turnout for

18868-570: The education given is getting a doctorate, and more than 85% of normaliens achieve this. The students are free to choose their own course of study but must at least attain a master's degree in research. Since, traditionally, the institution does not have the powers to grand university degrees, students have to follow courses in other universities in Paris. To this end, ENS cultivates a large number of partnerships and conventions with other higher education institutions to create master's degrees which are co-presided by two institutions. ENS works closely with

19046-401: The entrance exam. Around this same period Algerian novelist, essayist and filmmaker Assia Djebar , who would become one of the most prominent voices of Arab feminism , was a student at the school, as well as Belgian writer Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt . There is a tradition of social sciences at the school, and Émile Durkheim , regarded as one of the founders of the discipline of sociology , was

19224-462: The entrance exams. This method of recruitment is proving increasingly popular, with many students choosing to first go to a university and then enroll in a grande école. Some grandes écoles have a dual diploma arrangement in which a student can switch establishments in the last year to receive diplomas from both establishments. The French Grandes écoles mostly do not fit into the international, Anglo-American framework regarding their diplomas, nor in

19402-417: The field still further with his work in algebraic topology . His teaching, which continued until 1965, was vastly influential in shaping his students, who included Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat , Gustave Choquet , Jacques Dixmier , Roger Godement , René Thom and Jean-Pierre Serre . Denis Auroux , a famous symplectic geometer at Harvard University, is also an acclaimed Normalien. Since the 1936 establishment of

19580-961: The first was established at Châlons-sur-Marne in 1806 and the second at Angers in 1811 (both reorganized in 1832), with a third at Aix-en-Provence in 1841. Each had room for 300 pupils. There is no doubt that in the 1860s France had the best system of higher technical and scientific education in Europe. During the latter part of the 19th century and in the 20th century, more grandes écoles were established for education in businesses as well as newer fields of science and technology, including Rouen Business School ( NEOMA Business School ) in 1871, Sciences Po Paris in 1872, École nationale supérieure des télécommunications in 1878, Hautes Études commerciales in 1881, École supérieure d'électricité in 1894, Ecole des hautes Etudes commerciales du Nord in 1906 , Ecole Supérieure des Sciences économiques et commerciales in 1907, and Supaero in 1909. Since then, France has had

19758-588: The forces defending the convention in the Tuileries Palace . Bonaparte had seen the massacre of the King's Swiss Guard during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792 there three years earlier and realized that artillery would be the key to its defence. He ordered a young cavalry officer, Joachim Murat , to seize cannons and Bonaparte deployed them in key positions. On 5 October 1795— 13 Vendémiaire An IV in

19936-636: The founder of Galois theory and group theory , was an early student at ENS, then still called École préparatoire, in the 1820s, at the same time as fellow mathematician Augustin Cournot . Though mathematics continued to be taught at the school throughout the 19th century, its real dominance of the mathematic sphere would not emerge until after the First World War, with a young generation of mathematicians led by André Weil , known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry (also

20114-613: The fourth école normale supérieure was created in January 2014 under the name of École Normale Supérieure de Rennes (pure and applied sciences, economics and management, law school, sport) in Brittany . All four together form the informal ENS-group. The École normale supérieure is also an institution of PSL Research University , a union of several higher education institutions, all located in Paris, which aims at achieving cooperation and developing synergies between its member institutions to promote French research abroad. In addition to this,

20292-411: The garrison and some 1,500–5,000 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning. Men, women, and children were robbed and murdered for three days. Bonaparte began with an army of 13,000 men. 1,500 were reported missing, 1,200 died in combat, and thousands perished from disease—mostly bubonic plague . He failed to reduce the fortress of Acre , so he marched his army back to Egypt in May. Bonaparte

20470-846: The government. On 9 November 1799 ( 18 Brumaire according to the revolutionary calendar), the conspirators launched a coup, and the following day, backed by grenadiers with fixed bayonets, forced the Council of Five Hundred to dissolve the Directory and appoint Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos provisional consuls. On 15 December, Bonaparte introduced the Constitution of the Year VIII , under which three consuls were appointed for 10 years. Real power lay with Bonaparte as First Consul, and his preferred candidates Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun were appointed as second and third consuls who only had an advisory role. The constitution also established

20648-413: The grande école of their choice often repeat the second year of preparatory classes and attempt the exam again the following year. There are five categories of prépas : Some schools are accessible after a selection based on the grades of the two last years of lycée (High school) and/or the baccalaureate (High school diploma) results. For example, in engineering, the most attractive and selective ones are

20826-582: The heartlands of the House of Habsburg . French forces in Southern Germany had been defeated by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen in 1796, but Charles withdrew his forces to protect Vienna after learning of Bonaparte's assault. In their first encounter, Bonaparte pushed Charles back and advanced deep into Austrian territory after winning the Battle of Tarvis in March 1797. Alarmed by the French thrust that reached Leoben , about 100 km from Vienna,

21004-423: The help of his fellow Corsican Antoine Christophe Saliceti , Bonaparte was appointed artillery commander of the republican forces sent to recapture the port of Toulon which was occupied by British and allied forces. He quickly increased the available artillery and proposed a plan to capture a hill fort where republican guns could dominate the city's harbour and force the British to evacuate. The successful assault on

21182-503: The international academic competition. In their 2008 book European Universities in Transition , Carmelo Mazza, Paolo Quattrone and Angelo Riccaboni underlined that "the vast majority of Grandes Ecoles do not give any degree" upon completion of undergraduate studies, but that "[i]n practice, for accreditation or student exchange purposes, they grant a certificate of 'equivalence to a bachelor's degree'". For their engineering programs,

21360-404: The literary departments. Conversely, maths and physics introductory courses are on offer for the students from the "literary" departments. The ENS graduate degree, instituted in 2006, requires students to attend a certain number of courses not related to their major. The École normale supérieure has a network, known as Rubens, of ten libraries shared over its sites, which taken together make up

21538-539: The loss of only three men. Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and landed at Alexandria on 1 July. He fought the Battle of Shubra Khit against the Mamluks , Egypt's ruling military caste. This helped the French practise their defensive tactic for the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July, about 24 km (15 mi) from the pyramids . Bonaparte's forces of 25,000 roughly equalled those of

21716-426: The main entrance, at 46 rue d'Ulm, houses the school's biology department and laboratories as well as a part of its student residences. The seat of the school's physics and chemistry departments, inaugurated in 1936 by Léon Blum and Albert Lebrun , lies north of the school on rue Lhomond, while further up the rue d'Ulm its number 29 houses secondary libraries and the school's department of cognitive sciences. ENS has

21894-631: The main framework of the French public university system . Similar to the Ivy League in the United States, Oxbridge in the UK, and C9 League in China, grandes écoles are elite academic institutions that admit students through an extremely competitive process. Grandes écoles typically have much smaller class sizes and student bodies than public universities in France, and many of their programs are taught in English, and while most are more expensive than French universities, École normale supérieure charges

22072-409: The most prestigious of the grandes écoles , as well as one of the most prestigious higher education institutions in France. Its pupils are generally referred to as normaliens , while its alumni are sometimes referred to as archicubes . The school was founded in 1794 during the French Revolution , to provide homogeneous training of high-school teachers in France, but it later closed. The school

22250-534: The name of Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), which continues to exist today and still has close ties to the Paris school. Up to 1818, the students are handpicked by the academy inspectors based on their results in the secondary school. However, the " pensionnat " created by Napoleon came to be perceived under the Restoration as a nexus of liberal thought and was suppressed by then-minister of public instruction Denis-Luc Frayssinous in 1824. An école préparatoire

22428-535: The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, but spent long periods of leave in Corsica which fed his Corsican nationalism. In September 1789, he returned to Corsica and promoted the French revolutionary cause. Paoli returned to the island in July 1790, but he had no sympathy for Bonaparte, as he deemed his father a traitor for having deserted the cause of Corsican independence. Bonaparte plunged into

22606-512: The pedagogic continuous improvement of the School. Prominent professors: according to L'Etudiant , a prominent professor is permanent professor, holding a PhD from a French or foreign Higher Education Institution which is AACSB - or EQUIS -accredited and ranked amongst the Shanghai 2019 top 500 ranking . Adjunct Professors hold chair in another Higher Education Institution . Their teaching conditions are various, but not always stipulated in

22784-419: The position on 16–17 December led to the capture of the city. Toulon brought Bonaparte to the attention of powerful men including Augustin Robespierre , the younger brother of Maximilien Robespierre , a leading Jacobin. He was promoted to brigadier general and put in charge of defences on the Mediterranean coast. In February 1794, he was made artillery commander of the Army of Italy and devised plans to attack

22962-452: The posting. During this period, he wrote the romantic novella Clisson et Eugénie , about a soldier and his lover, in a clear parallel to Bonaparte's own relationship with Clary. In August, he obtained a position with the Bureau of Topography where he worked on military planning. On 15 September, Bonaparte was removed from the list of generals in regular service for refusing to serve in

23140-508: The preparation of a research project (baccalaureate + 2–4 years). PhD students at ENS are either graduate students from the ENS doctoral school or from another doctoral school co-accredited by ENS. Since 2016 PhD students preparing their doctoral research at ENS are awarded a PhD from PSL University. ENS also welcomes selected foreign students (the "international selection"), participates in various graduate programs, and has extensive research laboratories. The foreign students selected often receive

23318-550: The rankings may differ significantly between years, magazines, and the metric of interest (academic excellence, employability, diversity, ...). Most of them simply include the two-year preparatory class in their program while others like INSA Toulouse chose the Bachelor's master's doctorate system (BMD or LMD in French) to start the specialization earlier. Most students choose to get their licence, master or doctorate close to home. These years of preparation can be highly focused on

23496-507: The recipients of the CNRS 's Gold Medal , several hundred members of the Institut de France , as well as several French and foreign politicians and statespeople. The current institution finds its roots in the creation of the École normale de l'an III by the post-revolutionary National Convention led by Robespierre in 1794. The school was created based on a recommendation by Joseph Lakanal and Dominique-Joseph Garat , who were part of

23674-494: The recruitment is based on a contest or the student results. Most of these five-year grandes écoles are public, with very low admission fees (between 601€ and 2,350€ per year), and are free for national scholarship holders. A few others are either private or public with very high admission fee (up to 10,000€ per year, without exoneration for scholarship holders). These are usually the least selective ones and offer five-year training to students who otherwise could not have enrolled in

23852-643: The same medal in 2010 and the Nobel prize in 2019, and Thomas Piketty , author of the 2013 bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century . Since its creation in 2000, ten of the twenty recipients of the Prize of the best young French economist have been ENS alumni, including Antoine Bozio (who now teaches at EHESS ), Camille Landais ( LSE ), Emmanuel Farhi ( Harvard ), Pascaline Dupas ( Stanford ) and Xavier Gabaix (Harvard). ENS has never had

24030-694: The same tuition fees: for 2021/2022, they were €243 to register for the master's degree. International internships, study abroad opportunities, and close ties with government and the corporate world are a hallmark of the grandes écoles . Degrees from École normale supérieure are accredited by the Conférence des Grandes Écoles and awarded by the Ministry of National Education (France) ( French : Ministère de l'Éducation nationale ). Alumni go on to occupy elite positions within government, administration, and corporate firms in France. The École normale supérieure

24208-556: The school became a focal point of the École freudienne de Paris , and many of Lacan's disciples were educated there, including psychoanalysts Jacques-Alain Miller and Jean-Claude Milner , the first president of the World Association of Psychoanalysis . One of the school's foremost specialities has always been the teaching of history, and as such it has produced a large number of renowned historians who have been important in

24386-528: The school is less long, as it was not among the subjects first taught at the school. However, Gérard Debreu won the 1983 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel , and there is a growing output of economists from ENS, as evidenced by the young generation of French economists represented by Emmanuel Saez , winner of the 2009 John Bates Clark Medal , Esther Duflo , who won

24564-536: The school is that he led junior students to victory against senior students in a snowball fight, which allegedly showed his leadership abilities. But the story was only told after Napoleon had become famous. In his later years at Brienne, Napoleon became an outspoken Corsican nationalist and admirer of Paoli. In September 1784, Napoleon was admitted to the École militaire in Paris where he trained to become an artillery officer. He excelled at mathematics, and read widely in geography, history and literature. However, he

24742-453: The school program so students have a greater chance of succeeding in the admission exam or contest in their school if there is one, but they are not prepared to take the examinations for other schools so their chance of success in these other examinations is low. The advantage is that instead of studying simply to pass the admission exams, the student will study topics more targeted to their training and future specialization. The main advantage

24920-545: The school starting in 1933. Sinologist Marcel Granet , medievalist Jacques Le Goff , Egyptologist Gaston Maspero , archaeologist Paul Veyne , ancien régime specialist Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Pre-Columbian civilisation anthropologist Jacques Soustelle were all students at the school, as well as Georges Dumézil , who revolutionised comparative philology and mythography with his analyses of sovereignty in Proto-Indo-European religion and formulated

25098-500: The school were significantly reduced during the First World War , but the 1920s marked a degree of expansion of the school, which had among its students at this time such figures as Raymond Aron , Jean-Paul Sartre , Vladimir Jankélévitch and Maurice Merleau-Ponty . The high sacrifice paid by normaliens in the First World War was recognized by the award of the croix de guerre avec citation à l ordre de l armée in 1925. After

25276-402: The school's biology laboratories. 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). Preparation for the concours takes place in preparatory classes which last two years (see grandes écoles ). Two hundred normaliens are thus recruited every year, half of them in

25454-470: The school, and some of its literary departments (philosophy, literature, classics and archeology), its mathematics and computer science departments, as well as its main human sciences library. The site's monument aux morts , which was inaugurated in 1923 and stands as a reminder of the normaliens who died in the First World War , is a work by Paul Landowski . Several auxiliary buildings surround this main campus in adjacent streets. The closest one, opposite

25632-452: The school, in all sciences natural and social. The school also has launched its own short conference platform, Les Ernest, which shows renowned specialists speaking for fifteen minutes on a given subject in a wide scope of disciplines. In 1975 the school founded its university press, first called Presses de l'ENS then renamed in 1997 to Editions Rue d'Ulm. This press, which operates on a small scale, publishes specialist academic books mainly in

25810-577: The schools of the following first four groups train the so-called 'generaliste' engineers: 1. ParisTech alliance (it is an alliance of the best French engineering schools in Paris. Some of these schools are now part of collegiate universities such as Paris-Saclay University, PSL University or the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. Also some of these schools teach only a specific area): 2. Centrale Graduate Schools of engineering ; its students are commonly known as pistons (a reference to

25988-416: The sciences and the same number in the humanities, and receive a monthly salary (around €1,350/month in 2018), and in exchange they sign a ten-year contract to work for the state. Although it is seldom applied in practice, this exclusivity clause is redeemable (often by the hiring firm). Other students called " normaliens étudiants " can be selected but they do not have their study paid. They are selected with

26166-434: The secondary schools in the country and thereby to ensure a homogenous education for all. These courses covered all the existing sciences and humanities and were given by scholars such as: scientists Monge , Vandermonde , Daubenton , Berthollet and philosophers Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Volney were some of the teachers. The school was closed as a result of the arrival of the French Directory but this école normale

26344-518: The selection percentage are often the same order as during standard preparatory classes. The top-ranking five year grandes écoles also recruit some of the best students who followed one or two years of CPGE, through parallel admission procedures. The prépa years are not required to sit the entrance exams. Moreover, in many schools, there is also the possibility of “parallel admission” to a grande école. Parallel admissions are open to university students or students from other schools that decide not to take

26522-547: The semi-private ESCP Business School has signed a partnership agreement to award a PhD in management from Panthéon-Sorbonne University . The semi-private school HEC has done the same, along with the Polytechnic Institute of Paris (a public research university which consists of six public grandes écoles ). Full-time faculty researchers to assume their responsibility as teaching staff by giving lectures, accompanying students in their projects, participating in

26700-413: The seven schools composing the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA network), but there are dozens of selective and less selective engineering schools accessible directly after the baccalaureate. Some other famous highly selective engineering school are the three Universités de Technologie . It is also possible to join these schools in third year after a preparatory class or university and then

26878-591: The spheres of literature and the social sciences. Some 300 works are available on line on in the press's bookshop, and about 25 new titles are published every year. In 1986, an ENS foundation was created and recognised as a fondation d'utilité publique by law. It contributes to the development of the school, most notably by encouraging and facilitating the reception of foreign students and researchers. The Foundation, presided by Alain-Gérard Slama, manages some investments into financed positions for foreign researchers in ENS-associated laboratories. It has for example financed

27056-713: The teaching corps of École Polytechnique during the Napoleonic era). In 1802, Napoleon created the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr , which is also considered a grande école , although it trains only army officers. During the 19th century, a number of higher-education grandes écoles were established to support industry and commerce, such as École nationale supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne in 1816, École supérieure de Commerce de Paris (today ESCP Business School , founded in 1819), L'institut des sciences et industries du vivant et de l'environnement (Agro ParisTech) in 1826, and École centrale des Arts et Manufactures ( École centrale Paris ) in 1829. Between 1832 and 1870,

27234-434: The teaching of social sciences at the school. The concours , called B/L (the A/L concours standing for the traditional letters and human sciences), greatly emphasises proficiency in mathematics and economics alongside training in philosophy and literature. For a long time, most women were taught at a separate ENS, the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles at Sèvres . However, women were not explicitly barred entry until

27412-478: The temporary departure of British ships from French coastal ports and set sail for France, despite the fact that he had received no explicit orders from Paris. The army was left in the charge of Jean-Baptiste Kléber . Unknown to Bonaparte, the Directory had sent him orders to return from Egypt with his army to ward off a possible invasion of France, but these messages never arrived. By the time that he reached Paris in October, France's situation had been improved by

27590-403: The term 'engineer' has a broader meaning compared to the one understood in most other countries and can imply a person who has achieved a high level of study in both fundamental and applied sciences, as well as business management, humanities and social sciences. The best engineering schools will often provide such a general and very intensive education, although this is not always the case. Most of

27768-399: The territory of Louisiana to the United States . In December 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French, further expanding his power. The breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens led to the War of the Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered the coalition with a decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz , which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire . In the War of

27946-419: The third largest library in France. The catalogue is available for consultation online. Entrance to the libraries is reserved to domestic and international researchers of doctoral level, as well as to the teachers at the school, normaliens , other ENS students, and PSL Research University students. The main library, devoted to literature, classics, and human sciences, dates back to the nineteenth century when it

28124-418: The traditional way in which most students prepare to pass the competitive recruitment examination of the main grandes écoles. Most are held in state lycées (high schools); a few are private. Admission is competitive and based on the students' lycée grades. Preparatory classes with the highest success rates in the entrance examinations of the top grandes écoles are highly selective. Students who are not admitted to

28302-570: The treaty, Britain agreed to withdraw from most of the colonies it had recently captured from France and her allies, and France agreed to evacuate Naples. In April, Bonaparte publicly celebrated the peace and his controversial Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII under which the Pope recognized Bonaparte's regime and the regime recognized Catholicism as the majority religion of France. In a further step towards national reconciliation (known as "fusion"), Bonaparte offered an amnesty to most émigrés who wished to return to France. With Europe at peace and

28480-661: The two institutions was launched. ENS welcomes international researchers for one-year stays through the mediation of the Paris Institute of Advanced Research and the Villa Louis-Pasteur. The Blaise Pascal, Marie Curie, Condorcet and Lagrange research places ( chaires ) also allow researchers from abroad to stay for more than a year at ENS laboratories. ENS also is a member of the Franco-Chinese laboratory Saladyn since 2013. It has been hosting an antenna of New York University 's Erich Maria Remarque Institute since 2007. Furthermore, ENS has partnerships for research at Master's and Doctorate levels, sending its students to universities around

28658-607: The undergraduate degree of the Licence (the bachelor's degree in France) but deliver master's grande école degrees such as the Engineer's Diploma and the Accredited Diploma (for example, delivered with a Programme Grande École in business schools). Admission to the grandes écoles is extremely selective. Grandes écoles are generally publicly funded and therefore have limited tuition costs. Some, especially business schools ( Écoles de commerce ), are organised privately and therefore have more costly tuition. The term grande école originated in 1794 after

28836-457: The vast majority of the academic staff hosted at the ENS also belong to external institutions such as one of the Parisian universities , the CNRS and the EHESS . Generalistic in its recruitment and organisation, the ENS is the only grande école in France to have departments of research in all the natural, social, and human sciences. Its alumni include 14 Nobel Prize laureates, of which 8 are in Physics , 12 Fields Medalists , more than half

29014-443: The world to complete their tuition. It also shares thesis habilitation with universities abroad, meaning that somes theses can be written with support from both the ENS and one of its partner institutions. It is also customary for students in the literary and linguistic subjects to go to teach for one year in universities abroad with the position of junior fellows. These exchange and cooperation programs link ENS with universities such as

29192-590: The written exams then take a further set of exams, usually one-hour oral exams, during which they are given a problem to solve. After 20 minutes of preparation, the candidate presents the solution to a professor, who challenges the candidate on the answer and the assumptions being made. Afterwards, candidates receive a final national ranking, which determines admission to their grande école of choice. Classes préparatoires aux Grandes Écoles (CPGE), or prépas (preparatory classes for grandes écoles), are two-year classes, in either sciences, literature, or economics. These are

29370-438: The École normale supérieure cooperates in Atomium Culture , the first permanent platform for European excellence that brings together some of Europe's leading universities, newspapers and businesses. The school is a member of the Conference of University Presidents and of the Conference of Grandes Écoles . Its educational project being based on research, ENS seeks to train its students to become researchers. The main objective of

29548-418: Was a student at ENS and taught there for many years, and many of his disciples later became known for their own thought: among them were Étienne Balibar , philosopher Alain Badiou , who still teaches at the school as an emeritus professor, and Jacques Rancière . Still later, in the 1940s and 1950s, the world-renowned thinker Michel Foucault , founder of the history of systems of thought and future professor at

29726-421: Was alleged to have ordered plague-stricken men to be poisoned with opium to speed the retreat. Back in Egypt on 25 July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir . Bonaparte stayed informed of European affairs. He learned that France had suffered a series of defeats in the War of the Second Coalition . On 24 August 1799, fearing that the Republic's future was in doubt, he took advantage of

29904-778: Was an alumnus. The selective admission opens up to higher education based on academic merit. Some schools included in the category have roots in the 17th and 18th centuries and are older than the term grande école , which dates to 1794. Their forerunners were schools aimed at graduating civil servants, such as technical officers (École d'Arts et Métiers, renamed Arts et Métiers ParisTech , established in 1780), mine supervisors ( École des mines de Paris , established in 1783), bridge and road engineers ( École royale des ponts et chaussées , established in 1747), and shipbuilding engineers ( École des ingénieurs-constructeurs des vaisseaux royaux , established in 1741). Five military engineering academies and graduate schools of artillery were established in

30082-450: Was appointed head of the Army of Italy. Within weeks of the Vendémiaire uprising , Bonaparte was romantically involved with Joséphine de Beauharnais , the former mistress of Barras. Josephine had been born in the French colonies in the Lesser Antilles , and her family owned slaves on sugar plantations The couple married on 9 March 1796 in a civil ceremony. Bonaparte now habitually styled himself "Napoleon Bonaparte" rather than using

30260-423: Was born one year after the Republic of Genoa ceded Corsica to France. His father fought alongside Pasquale Paoli during the Corsican war of independence against France. After the Corsican defeat at the Battle of Ponte Novu in 1769 and Paoli's exile in Britain, Carlo became friends with the French governor Charles Louis de Marbeuf , who became his patron and godfather to Napoleon. With Mabeuf's support, Carlo

30438-409: Was commissioned as an officer in the French Royal Army in 1785. He supported the French Revolution in 1789, and promoted its cause in Corsica. He rose rapidly through the ranks after winning the siege of Toulon in 1793 and defeating royalist insurgents in Paris on 13 Vendémiaire in 1795. In 1796, Napoleon commanded a military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies in the War of

30616-415: Was created on 9 March 1826 at the site of Collège Louis-le-Grand . This date can be taken as the definitive date of creation of the current school. After the July Revolution, the school regained its original name of École normale and in 1845 was renamed École normale supérieure . During the 1830s, under the direction of philosopher Victor Cousin , the school enhanced its status as an institution to prepare

30794-503: Was greatly expanded by its director, the famous dreyfusard Lucien Herr . Its main reading room is protected as a monument historique . This main library, which covers several thousand square metres, is one of the largest free access funds of books in France, with upwards of 800,000 books readily available and more than 1600 periodicals. Its classics section is part of the national network of specialised libraries (Cadist). A secondary library concerned with social science, economics, and law

30972-470: Was named Corsican representative to the court of Louis XVI and Napoleon obtained a royal bursary to a military academy in France. The dominant influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, whose firm discipline restrained a rambunctious child. Later in life, Napoleon said, "The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother." Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background afforded him greater opportunities to study than were available to

31150-467: Was poor at French and German. His father's death in February 1785 cut the family income and forced him to complete the two-year course in one year. In September he was examined by the famed scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace and became the first Corsican to graduate from the École militaire . Upon graduating in September 1785, Bonaparte was commissioned a second lieutenant in La Fère artillery regiment . He served in Valence and Auxonne until after

31328-410: Was routinely bullied by his peers for his accent, birthplace, short stature, mannerisms, and poor French. He became reserved and melancholic, applying himself to reading. An examiner observed that Napoleon "has always been distinguished for his application in mathematics. He is fairly well acquainted with history and geography ... This boy would make an excellent sailor". One story of Napoleon at

31506-399: Was subsequently reestablished by Napoleon I as pensionnat normal from 1808 to 1822, before being recreated in 1826 and taking the name École normale in 1830. When other institutes called écoles normales were created in 1845, the word supérieure (meaning upper) was added to form the current name. In 1936, the institution started providing university-level education. As a grande école ,

31684-449: Was to serve as a basis when the school was founded for the second time by Napoleon I in 1808. On 17 March 1808, Napoleon created by decree a pensionnat normal within the imperial University of France charged with "training in the art of teaching the sciences and the humanities". The establishment was opened in 1810, its strict code including a mandatory uniform. By then a sister establishment had been created by Napoleon in Pisa under

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