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Who governs France:
Macron’s 100 ministers

Gaman-Golutvina O.V.,

MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia; Russian Political Science Association, Moscow, Russia; HSE University, Moscow, Russia; Comparative Politics Russia, Moscow, Russia, ogaman@mgimo.ru

elibrary_id: 250180 | ORCID: 0000-0002-2660-481X | RESEARCHER_ID: E-4046-2012

Solov’eva D.D.,

MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia, solovevadd@yandex.ru

Article received: 2023.09.12. Accepted: 2023.10.04


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2023.06.04
EDN: JIWPGR

Rubric: Theme of the issue: practices of the global crisis and mechanisms of political evolution

For citation:

Gaman-Golutvina O.V., Solov’eva D.D. Who governs France: Macron’s 100 ministers. – Polis. Political Studies. 2023. No. 6. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2023.06.04. EDN: JIWPGR

The article was prepared in the framework of a research grant funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (Grant agreement No. 075-15-2022-327 from April 22, 2022).

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study on the evolution of the personel composition of the French government during the presidency of E. Macron in 2017-2023. After being elected to the country’s highest state office, E. Macron initiated a large-scale institutional political reform, which prompted the authors to consider the projection of institutional transformations on the rotation of the composition of ministers with a focus on their educational status. The chosen angle of the study is determined not only by the fact that information about managerial personnel characterizes the content of politics as a whole, but also by the special role educational training plays in the top managerial echelon in France, where the specialized segment of the education system closely overlaps with the system of recruiting the country’s political elite. Hypothetically, it was logical to expect that Macron’s economic reforms, organic to the liberalization megatrend of the global and many national economies, which has been relevant for the last four decades, be accompanied not only by an increase in the share of people from the corporate sector in the top management of France, but they would also entail changes in the way the political elite was recruited by, specifically by replacing public administrators with corporate management. The study undertaken by the authors did not confirm these assumptions. Although the double pantouflage is becoming more and more common in France, the proverbial “revolving door” rotates predominantly in one direction. Moreover, contrary to predictions, Macron has even reinforced France’s earlier practice in favor of greater openness, democracy, and empowering “social elevators” through the 2022 reform of the “forge” of managerial personnel, the National School of Administration. The 2017 French elections opened the way to ministerial seats for non-professional politicians and significantly renewed the ministerial corps, reducing the role of the “old parties” and often nullifying the experience of some politicians. However, the institutional rules for recruiting the country’s political elite, defined by the educational system and set by the key recruiting universities, remain relevant.

Keywords

France, E. Macron, political elites, public administration, education system, National School of Administration, Paris Institute of Political Science, pantouflage.

 Full Text

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Gaman-Golutvina, O.V, & Solov’eva, D.D. (2021). France’s new political elite against the old recruitment system. Polis. Political Studies, 6, 60-72. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2021.06.05

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Solov’eva, D.D. (2021). Sistema obrazovaniya kak kanal rekrutirovaniya politicheskoi elity v Velikobritanii i Frantsii [The education system as a channel for recruiting the political elite in Great Britain and France]. Dissertation for the Degree of Candidate of Political Sciences. Moscow: MGIMO University. (In Russ.)

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