The establishment created in 1794 waited 1972 to authorize candidates for their entrance exam. Today there are only 20 % to present themselves, which “is not enough at all,” said Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, resulting from the 1981 promotion, November 15.
by soazig the nevé
“No one knew what to do with us, girls, these rare birds, so we were first put to the infirmary”, narrates Anne Chopinet in a documentary for the fiftieth feminization of the Polytechnic School, presented in preview for the occasion, Tuesday, November 15, and which will be broadcast on its site at the end of November. “We were regarded as phenomena, adds Dominique Senequier. It was as if we had received a gift.” In the Foch amphitheater of the Military School, the archive images of the INA succeed one another on the screen , gathered by director Pauline Pallier. They trigger laughter in the assembly of some 600 people, mostly women.
In the summer of 1972, Anne Chopinet and Dominique Senequier were one of the first seven recruits of the prestigious engineering school of the Sainte-Geneviève mountain, created nearly two hundred years earlier, in 1794. The first, Who had all the competitions she had passed – normal sup, central and polytechnic – is at the center of all attention, responds to interviews. An Ina archive seated on a bench, to be converse with Jean-Paul Sautet, journalist at ORTF. He asks her if she is “frivolous”, if she “runs the shops” and if she happens to “surprise herself to look at herself in the ice”. “I had found that it was not entirely adapted to the competition I had just passed,” comments the polytechnician politely.
You have to find a uniform for the seven young girls. Proposals are made by large designers but it is ultimately “the tailor of General de Gaulle” who is chosen by management. As an entry major in the competition, Anne Chopinet parades at the top of the procession, on July 14, 1973. The management of the X, formed of soldiers, provides for her upstream preparation exercises. “We wanted to make sure that I was not going to let go of the [school] flag in front of the President of the Republic and fail,” reports the one who made her career in the High Public Service.
First promotion in pants … in 2020
At the amphitheater forum, the current president of X, Eric Labaye (promotion 1980), tries to measure the progress made for fifty years. “Untracing gender stereotypes, it takes time”, he acts while the engineering cycle competition just records 20 % of women’s candidates (compared to 2.2 % in 1972) and 20 % of women admitted. The new courses of Bachelor and Masters of Sciences and Technologies, with very international recruitment, have 35 % of women.
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