Rattling The French Elite

GILLES LEIMDORFER/RAPHO for TIME

French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin all but declared war on the Parisian élite in an October interview with TIME, chastising French intellectuals for "not being open-minded enough about the world."

It's a problem previous governments have grappled with, but last week Raffarin's government launched a new assault on the ruling class's high temple: the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, the fiercely competitive, 58-year-old school that breeds France's best and brightest. As of 2005, the school will close its Paris campus for everything but continuing education and concentrate its activities at its Strasbourg headquarters.

While the...

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