June 2, 2025
Welcome to the sixth and penultimate entry in my Holiday in Sicily series. Coincidentally, as I write this, Etna is erupting, just in time for today’s post, where I finally turn to the main volcano: the French academic and meritocratic system. The one I approached two posts ago, and which is now showing signs of violent activity. The magma chamber is fracturing. The smoke is rising. The eruption has begun.
French academia, industry, and the state itself have long been built and steered by engineers. Not just any engineers, but those trained in the elite grandes écoles including Polytechnique, ENS, Mines, Ponts, ENSTA, and ISAE. These schools are more than institutions—they are pipelines into power.
École Polytechnique alone has produced an extraordinary roster of alumni: three Nobel laureates, legendary mathematicians such as Cauchy, Cholesky, Jordan, Liouville, Poincaré, and Poisson, as well as heads of state like Borne, Giscard d'Estaing, Lebrun, and Sadi Carnot. And that’s just the beginning—many more appear on this long Wikipedia list.
The gateway to this ruling class? National competitive exams. Thousands of students spend two grueling years in classes préparatoires (or prépas, for short) for a shot at the top. Those who pass enter the grandes écoles; those who don’t often fall off the radar entirely. It’s a system built on selection, stress, and prestige.
On paper, it’s brilliant. Two intense years, then the concours, a written exam followed by oral exams if you pass the first stage. The best succeed, regardless of wealth, or so we’re told. From there, the Republic rewards its young elite. The schools are free for low-income students and very affordable for others, typically around €5,000 per year, and completely free at institutions like Polytechnique and ENS. Careers are effectively shaped by these degrees. The school you attend often determines your entire professional trajectory, including access to specific career paths and salary scales tied directly to your alma mater.
I know—I walked that path. I’m from a (lower) middle-class family. I received state aid to cover tuition fees. The Republic lifted a part of the burden. For that, I am grateful. But gratitude is not silence.
The volcano looks majestic from afar. The slopes are clean, the summit sunlit, and the climb subsidized. But as you ascend, the air thins. The paths narrow. The terrain reveals its traps.
Let’s be honest: diversity isn’t Polytechnique’s strong suit. According to a 2018 study, 50% of successful candidates in 2013 (MP and PC tracks) come from just two preparatory schools: Louis-le-Grand (Paris, public) and Sainte-Geneviève (Versailles, private Catholic). These elite prépas can afford to run targeted preparation programs for the Polytechnique entrance exams. In contrast, other schools struggle to even cover the syllabus. The result? Students from Louis-le-Grand and Sainte-Geneviève are five times more likely to make it to the oral exams than those from “intermediate” prépas.
The numbers on diversity are bleak. In 2024, only 16.7% of admitted students were female, and that figure is declining (source). In terms of socioeconomic background, that same 2018 study, commented on in Libération and Le Figaro Étudiant, showed 1.1% of students came from working-class backgrounds compared to 29.2% nationally.
And the system reinforces itself. While written exams are held in regional centers, oral exams require students to travel to Paris at their own expense. Travel costs and logistics become invisible barriers. Professors from the most prestigious prépas have often been involved in designing the exams—or still are. That’s not a leak. That’s structural capture. Past written exams are made available online, but past oral questions are tightly guarded and circulated internally within top prépas. The problem isn’t just Polytechnique: a broader study shows that most grandes écoles in France remain bastions of social reproduction.
| Polytechnique | French population | |
|---|---|---|
| Women (2024) | 16.7% | ≈50% |
| Working class (2018) | 1.1% | 29.2% |
While France takes pride in its egalitarian ideals, the numbers suggest otherwise. When it comes to diversity in its elite institutions, we’re not doing better than the UK or US models we so often criticize. Oxford and Columbia—despite operating within systems often portrayed in France as elitist and commodified—show stronger inclusion on key metrics.
At Oxford, recent admissions to mathematics show nearly 28% female students, rising to 44% for Math & Stats (source). In terms of social background, 21.2% of Oxford students across all courses came from areas of social and economic disadvantage and from areas of low progression to higher education, a strong indicator of outreach and inclusion beyond the elite schools pipeline (source).
Columbia’s data shows that 39% of math and stats graduates in 2022 were women (source), and while access by income remains a challenge, 5.1% of students came from the bottom 20% of family income—five times higher than Polytechnique’s proportion of working-class students (source).
| Oxford (Overall) | Oxford (Math) | Oxford (Math & Stats) | UK Population | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Women (2023) | 52.2% | 27.9% | 44.0% | ≈50% |
| Disadvantaged backgrounds (2023) | 21.2% | [N/A] | [N/A] | [N/A] |
| Columbia (Math & Stats) | US Population | |
|---|---|---|
| Women (2022) | 39.0% | ≈50% |
| Low income (2013) | 5.1% | 20.0% |
The lava is moving fast elsewhere. We’re still admiring the symmetry of our volcano.
What is life like inside a grande école? At first glance, it’s an impressive ecosystem. The students are brilliant. I’ve taught at Oxford and Columbia, and while those institutions attract extraordinary minds from across the world, I’d argue that, on average, a Polytechnique student is stronger technically. France’s top engineering schools produce sharp, driven individuals with an admirable ambition. But that’s only half the story.
The academic schedule is intense. More than 30 hours of classes per week with lectures followed by two-hour tutorials. It’s immediate, heavy, and gives students little time to digest what they’ve learned. The format is rigorous, by design. As a consequence, attendance is often poor. A turnout of two-thirds is considered good. Some students treat their allowed absences as paid leave. Once, a student told me “Since I haven’t missed anything yet, I’ll skip next week’s tutorial and enjoy a long weekend.” At Polytechnique, where I currently teach, and at ENSTA, where I taught previously, this attitude is not uncommon. The entitlement can be striking.
And when policies change—when, for example, the administration at ENSTA decided to tighten rules around absences—students went on strike. They sat in protest outside the library. It was all very French. And very privileged.
It’s easy to forget just how fortunate we are when it comes to education. At the start of each term, once I’ve had a chance to get to know the group, I sometimes mention how much tuition costs at a university like Columbia. Students are usually surprised—they simply haven’t had much reason to think about it. The education they receive here is world-class, funded by the state, and often taken for granted—not out of neglect, but because it’s just part of the landscape. Still, every now and then, it’s worth stepping back and appreciating what that means.
And it’s expensive. Very. The lectures are usually given by a single, senior professor, and then students are split into small groups of about 20 for tutorials—each led by another academic, often less senior. It’s a fantastic pedagogical structure, but also a costly one: one lecturer, a dozen tutors, plus funding for sports facilities, student clubs, and countless associations. I’m not criticizing, I benefited from this system myself, but it’s a real investment of public money.
At Polytechnique, for example, a single engineering student can cost the state up to €40,000 per year (source). That’s about four times the national average for higher education students (source). This figure does not include the salary students receive. Yes, unlike most students in the world, Polytechnique students not only study for free: they are paid a monthly salary. It’s one of the most generous public education systems on Earth. That generosity comes with responsibility: in a time of tight public budgets, how do we make sure this investment continues to make sense—not just for the students, but for society?
The volcano is no longer dormant. Its foundations are cracking. Our model of meritocracy is eroding from within. It feeds on the myth of neutrality while entrenching inequality. It’s time to redraw the map. Here are proposals—not reforms, but tectonic shifts:
From a distance, the volcano was beautiful—perfect symmetry, noble ascent. But I’ve stood on its rim, and what I saw wasn’t glory. Smoke can be spun. Exams can be dressed in neutrality. But lava doesn’t lie, it flows where inequality has cracked the ground. The eruption has begun. And in forty-eight hours, the mountain will speak in flames.