Le façonnage des élites de la République

What are the common threads in the language of ENA graduates? What characterizes military style? Which models of rhetoric do magistrates consult? The analysis of "manners of speech" indicates a resemblance to the elite, providing the focus of this book.

To this end, the most prestigious playing fields for selection into civil service, the École
nationale d'administration (ENA), École nationale de la magistrature (ENM), and the Cours
supérieur d’état-major, and more particularly the written and oral general knowledge exams, are a stage for select observation of these models of discourse.

Directly tied to professional decision making procedures, cultural conceptions, as well as forms of argument and expression appearing in the speech of the juries of this competition, the closest copies and the subjects of exams, definitively design the different models of action for state service, whether administrative, judicial, or military.

Above all, the work of Claire Oger poses two fundamental questions: that of a republican meritocracy founded more on an archaic social model than on acquired knowledge, and that of the possibility of reforming these graduate programs so strongly anchored in the blueprint of their founders.

Claire Oger is a Master of Conferences in Science and Information, and of Communication, a member of LabSic (Laboratoire des sciences de l’information et de la communication) at the University of Paris-13, and an Associate Member of Céditec (Centre d'étude des discours, images, textes, écrits, communications) at the University of Paris-12, Val-de-Marne.