The ''Corps des mines'' is the foremost technical

Grand Corps of the French State Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor * Grand Mixer DXT, American turntablist * Grand Puba (born 1966), American rapper Places * Grand, Oklahoma * Grand, Vosges, village and co ...

(grands corps de l'Etat). It is composed of the state industrial engineers. The Corps is attached to the French Ministry of Economy and Finance. Its purpose is to entice French students in mathematics and physics to serve the government and train them for executive careers in France. Members are educated at the

École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris Mines Paris - PSL, officially École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris (until May 2022 Mines ParisTech, also known as École des mines de Paris, ENSMP, Mines de Paris, les Mines, or Paris School of Mines), is a French grande école and a c ...

, also known as

Mines ParisTech Mines Paris - PSL, officially École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris (until May 2022 Mines ParisTech, also known as École des mines de Paris, ENSMP, Mines de Paris, les Mines, or Paris School of Mines), is a French grande école and a ...

. Each year, the Corps recruits between 10 and 20 members. Most of them are alumni from

École polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

, who are usually among the top ranked students, others come from

École normale supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

(ENS),

Télécom Paris Télécom Paris (also known as ENST or Télécom or École nationale supérieure des télécommunications, also Télécom ParisTech until 2019) is a French public institution for higher education (''grande école'') and engineering research. Loca ...

or regular graduates of the

. Upon graduation, ''Corps des mines'' engineers hold executive positions in the French administration. ''Corps des mines'' engineers tend to hold top executive positions in France's major industrial companies in the course of their career. Being admitted to the ''Corps des mines'' program is considered a significant fast-track for executive careers in France.

Missions

''Corps des Mines'' engineers contribute to the conception, implementation and evaluation of public policies in the fields of: *industry and economy *energy and natural resources *information and communication technologies *environment sustainability, industrial safety and public health *research, innovation and new technologies *land use planning and transportation *standardization and metrology *banking, insurance and financial services ''Corps des Mines'' engineers typically hold high-level technical or executive positions in various ministries or international organizations. After serving in the administration, part of the ''Corps des Mines'' engineers transfer to the private sector, where they hold top executive positions in large industrial companies.

Recruitment and training

''Corps des Mines'' engineers are recruited among the top students from

and Télécom ParisTech. About twenty engineers enroll every year. During the course of their training, the ''Corps des Mines'' engineers have to complete two one-year positions in private companies (one in France and one abroad), followed by a one-year training in public administration, hosted at

. The main aim of the training is to provide theoretical and practical knowledge about how companies operate, together with a sound understanding of government responsibilities in the technical and economic fields.

Notable members

These are listed by chronological order of birthdate. * Armand Dufrénoy (1792-1857) *

Gabriel Lamé Gabriel Lamé (22 July 1795 – 1 May 1870) was a French mathematician who contributed to the theory of partial differential equations by the use of curvilinear coordinates, and the mathematical theory of elasticity (for which linear elasticity ...

(1795-1870) * Élie de Beaumont (1798-1874) * Émile Clapeyron (1799-1864), one of the founder of thermodynamics *

Michel Chevalier Michel Chevalier (; 13 January 1806 – 18 November 1879) was a French engineer, statesman, economist and free market liberal. Biography Born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, Chevalier studied at the ''École Polytechnique'', obtaining an engineering d ...

(1806-1879) * Frédéric le Play (1806-1882) *

Henri Victor Regnault Henri Victor Regnault (21 July 1810 – 19 January 1878) was a French chemist and physicist best known for his careful measurements of the thermal properties of gases. He was an early thermodynamicist and was mentor to William Thomson in ...

(1810-1878) * Louis Le Chatelier (1815-1873) *

Charles-Eugène Delaunay Charles-Eugène Delaunay (9 April 1816 – 5 August 1872) was a French astronomer and mathematician. His lunar motion studies were important in advancing both the theory of planetary motion and mathematics. Life Born in Lusigny-sur-Barse, F ...

(1816-1872) *

Charles de Freycinet Charles Louis de Saulces de Freycinet (; 14 November 1828 – 14 May 1923) was a French statesman and four times Prime Minister during the Third Republic. He also served an important term as Minister of War (1888–1893). He belonged to the Opp ...

(1828-1923), prime minister of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

at the end of the 19th century *

Camille Jordan Marie Ennemond Camille Jordan (; 5 January 1838 – 22 January 1922) was a French mathematician, known both for his foundational work in group theory and for his influential ''Cours d'analyse''. Biography Jordan was born in Lyon and educated at ...

(1838-1922) * Henry Le Chatelier (1850-1936), chemist *

Henry Küss Henry Küss (or Henry Kuss, sometimes Henri Küss, 19 June 1852 – 22 November 1914) was a French mining engineer. After brilliant studies at the École Polytechnique and École des Mines he was placed in charge of the mineralogical sub-district ...

(1852-1914) *

Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré ( S: stress final syllable ; 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "The ...

(1854-1912), Nineteenth century mathematician and scientist *

Édouard Estaunié Édouard Estaunié (4 February 1862 in Dijon – 2 April 1942 in Paris) was a French novelist. Estaunié trained as a scientist and engineer, working at the Post and Telepgraph service and training further in Holland, before turning to the novel i ...

(1862-1942) *

Georges Friedel Georges Friedel (19 July 1865 – 11 December 1933) was a French Mineralogy, mineralogist and Crystallography, crystallographer. Life Georges was the son of the chemist Charles Friedel. Georges' grandfather was Georges Louis Duvernoy, Louis Geor ...

(1865-1933) *

Alfred-Marie Liénard Alfred-Marie Liénard (2 April 1869 in Amiens – 29 April 1958 in Paris), was a French physicist and engineer. He is most well known for his derivation of the Liénard–Wiechert potentials. From 1887 to 1889 Liénard was a student at the Éco ...

(1869-1958) *

Albert Lebrun Albert François Lebrun (; 29 August 1871 – 6 March 1950) was a French politician, President of France from 1932 to 1940. He was the last president of the Third Republic. He was a member of the centre-right Democratic Republican Alliance (A ...

(1871-1950), president of

during the 3rd republic *

Conrad Schlumberger Conrad Schlumberger (2 October 1878 in Gebweiler (Alsace-Lorraine) – 9 May 1936 in Stockholm) and Emile Henry Marcel Schlumberger (21 June 1884 in Gebweiler – 9 May 1953 in Val-Richer) were brothers from the region of Alsace-Lorraine, France, ...

(1878-1936), founder with his brother Marcel of the Société de Prospection Electrique, that became later

Schlumberger Limited Schlumberger Limited (), doing business as SLB, is an oilfield services company. Schlumberger has four principal executive offices located in Paris, Houston, London, and The Hague. Schlumberger is the world's largest offshore drilling compa ...

Georges Painvin Georges Jean Painvin (; 28 January 1886 – 21 January 1980) was a French geologist and industrialist, best known as the cryptanalyst who broke the ADFGX/ADFGVX cipher used by the Germans during the First World War. Early life Painvin was born i ...

(1886-1980) * Paul Lévy (1886-1971) *

Léon Daum Léon Daum (21 March 1887 – 28 May 1966) was a French mining engineer, company director and senior European administrator. He was a member of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community from 1952 to 1959. Origins Léon Daum's ...

(1887-1966) *

Louis Armand Louis François Armand (17 January 1905 – 30 August 1971) was a French engineer and senior civil servant who managed several public companies, as well as had a significant role in World War II as an officer in the Resistance. He became the f ...

(1905-1971) *

Pierre Guillaumat Pierre Guillaumat (5 August 1909 – 28 August 1991) was a Minister of National Education and Minister of the Armies under French President Charles de Gaulle and founder of the Elf Aquitaine oil company in 1967. He was born in La Flèche ...

(1909-1991) *

Maurice Allais Maurice Félix Charles Allais (31 May 19119 October 2010) was a French physicist and economist, the 1988 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his pioneering contributions to the theory of markets and efficient utilization o ...

(1911-2010), 1988 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences *

Maurice Lauré Maurice Lauré (24 November 1917 - 20 April 2001) is primarily known for creating the ''taxe sur la valeur ajoutée'' (TVA in French, otherwise known as value added tax (VAT) in English). Originally an engineer of the École Polytechnique with th ...

(1917-2001) *

Jacques Friedel Jacques Friedel ForMemRS (; 11 February 1921 – 27 August 2014) was a French physicist and material scientist. Education Friedel attended the Cours Hattemer, a private school. He studied at the École Polytechnique from 1944 to 1946, and the É ...

(1921-2014) *

Claude Bloch Claude Bloch (18 March 1923 – 29 December 1971) was a French theoretical nuclear physicist. He authored over 60 published articles and made significant impact on the fields of quantum field theory, nuclear physics, and the many-body problem. Bl ...

(1923-1971) *

Pierre Laffitte Pierre Laffitte (21 February 1823 – 4 January 1903) was a French positivist philosopher. Laffitte was born at Béguey, Gironde. Residing at Paris as a teacher of mathematics, he became a disciple of Auguste Comte, who appointed him his lit ...

(1925-2021) * (1925-1997) *

Georges Besse Georges Besse (25 December 1927 – 17 November 1986) was a French businessman who led several large state-controlled French companies. He was assassinated outside his Paris home by the terrorist group Action directe. At the time of his death he ...

(1927-1986) * Robert Dautray (1928) * Yves Jeannin (1931) *

Roger Balian Roger Balian (born 18 January 1933) is a French-Armenian physicist who has worked on quantum field theory, quantum thermodynamics, and theory of measurement. Balian is a member of French Académie des sciences (Academy of Sciences). His importan ...

(1933) * Gérard Théry (1933-2021) * Charles-Michel Marle (1934) *

Lionel Stoléru Lionel Guy Stoléru (22 November 1937 – 30 November 2016) was a French politician and civil servant. He was also an orchestra founder and conductor. His father, Ilie, was a Romanian immigrant from Vaslui. Stoléru was born in Nantes and atte ...

(1937-2016) *

Francis Mer Francis Mer (born 25 May 1939, in Pau) is a French businessman, industrialist and politician. A former alumnus of the École Polytechnique, and of the École des Mines de Paris, he is a member of the Corps des mines. He was hired in 1970 by the ...

(1939), former CEO of

Usinor Usinor was a French steel making group formed in 1948. The group was merged with Sacilor in 1986, becoming Usinor-Sacilor and was privatised in 1995, and renamed Usinor in 1997. In 2001 it merged with Arbed (Luxembourg) and Aceralia (Spain) to for ...

and former

Minister of Finances A ministry of finance is a part of the government in most countries that is responsible for matters related to the finance. Lists of current ministries of finance Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Finance (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Finance and Ec ...

Jean-Louis Beffa Jean-Louis Beffa (born 11 August 1941 in Nice, France) is a French businessman. He was Chairman and CEO of Saint-Gobain from 1986 to 2007, Chairman until 2010 and is Honorary Chairman of the board of Saint-Gobain. He is a former member of the ...

(1941), CEO of

Saint-Gobain Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. () is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris and headquartered on the outskirts of Paris, at La Défense and in Courbevoie. Originally a mirror manufacturer, it now also produces a variety of ...

Didier Lombard Didier Lombard (born 27 February 1942) is a French businessman. Between February 2005 and March 2010 he was chairman and CEO of France Télécom. In 2010 he resigned as CEO, retaining the chairmanship. Since 2012, he has been under indictment fo ...

(1942) * Bertrand Collomb (1942-2019) *

Thierry de Montbrial Thierry de Montbrial (born 3 March 1943) is the executive chairman of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), which he founded in 1979. He is also the founder and chairman of the World Policy Conference (WPC), which he created in ...

(1943) *

Jacques Attali Jacques José Mardoché Attali (; born 1 November 1943) is a French economic and social theorist, writer, political adviser and senior civil servant, who served as a counselor to President François Mitterrand from 1981 to 1991, and was the firs ...

(1943) * Jacques Vernier (1944) *

Thierry Desmarest Thierry Desmarest (born 18 December 1945 in Paris) is a French businessman. He is the current honorary chairman of Total. He was also chief executive officer at Total from May 1995 until February 2007, when he was replaced by Christophe de Marg ...

(1945), former CEO of

TotalEnergies TotalEnergies SE is a French Multinational corporation, multinational integrated energy and List of oil exploration and production companies, petroleum company founded in 1924 and one of the seven Big Oil, supermajor oil companies. Its businesses ...

* Noël Forgeard (1946), former CEO of

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and

EADS Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: '' ...

Gérard Berry Gérard Philippe Berry (born 25 December 1948) is a French computer scientist, member of the French Academy of Sciences (Académie des sciences), French Academy of Technologies (Académie des technologies), and Academia Europaea. He was the Chie ...

(1946) *

Jean-Martin Folz Jean-Martin Folz (born 11 January 1947) is a French businessman. He was the chairman and CEO of PSA Peugeot Citroën The PSA Group (), legally known as Peugeot S.A. (Peugeot Société Anonyme, trading as Groupe PSA; formerly known as PSA P ...

(1947), former CEO of

PSA Peugeot Citroën The PSA Group (), legally known as Peugeot S.A. (Peugeot Société Anonyme, trading as Groupe PSA; formerly known as PSA Peugeot Citroën from 1991 to 2016) was a French multinational automotive manufacturing company which produced automobiles ...

* Jean-Louis Masson (1947) *

Pierre Pringuet Pierre Pringuet is a French businessman. He was the chief executive officer of Pernod-Ricard from 2008 to 2015. He serves as its vice president, as well as the president of the French Association of Private Enterprises (AFEP). Early life Pierre ...

(1950), former CEO of

Pernod Ricard Pernod Ricard () is a French company best known for its anise-flavoured pastis apéritifs Pernod Anise and Ricard Pastis (often referred to simply as ''Pernod'' or ''Ricard''). The world’s second-largest wine and spirits seller, it also produ ...

Denis Ranque Denis Ranque (born 7 January 1952 in Marseille) is a French engineer and businessman who served as CEO and chairman of Thales Group from 1998 until 2009. Career In 1976, Denis Ranque began his career as an engineer of the Corps des mines at the M ...

(1952), Chairman of

, former CEO of

Thales Group Thales Group () is a French multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures electrical systems as well as devices and equipment for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security sectors. The company is headquartered in Paris' ...

Jacques Biot Jacques Biot (born 6 December 1952) is a French engineer, businessman, lobbyist for pharmaceutical companies and academic administrator. He serves as the president of the École Polytechnique between 2013 and 2018. Early life Jacques Biot was bor ...

(1952), former president of

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

Patrick Kron Patrick Kron (born 26 September 1953) was the chairman and chief executive (Président-directeur général) of the French engineering conglomerate Alstom. Alstom is most well known for its Eurostar and TGV trains, and is headquartered at Levall ...

(1953) * François Loos (1953) * Jacques Aschenbroich (1954), CEO of

Valeo Valeo is a French global automotive supplier headquartered in France, listed on the Paris Stock Exchange ( CAC-40 Index). It supplies a wide range of products to automakers and the aftermarket. The Group employs 113,600 people in 33 countries wo ...

Jean-Bernard Lévy Jean-Bernard Lévy (born 18 March 1955) is a French businessman, and the CEO and chairman of EDF. Early life Born on 18 March 1955, the son of a doctor, Lévy attended the Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly-sur-Seine. His parents sent him to England for ...

(1955), CEO of

Électricité de France Électricité de France S.A. (literally ''Electricity of France''), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational electric utility company, largely owned by the French state. Headquartered in Paris, with €71.2 billion in revenues in 2 ...

* Laurence Danon (1956) * Jean-Baptiste Leblond (1957) *

Jean-Pierre Clamadieu Jean-Pierre Clamadieu (born 15 August 1958) is a French businessman. Clamadieu has been the Chairman of Engie since May 2018 and a former chief executive officer of Solvay and member of the board of directors from May 2012 to March 2019. He serv ...

(1958), CEO of

Solvay Solvay may refer to: Companies and organizations * Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Brussels, Belgium * Solvay Conference, founded by Ernest Solvay, deals with open questions in physics and chemistry * Solvay Indupa, an Argen ...

, Chairman of Rhodia *

Hervé Mariton Hervé Marie David Mariton (born 5 November 1958) is French politician serving as Mayor of Crest since 1995. A member of The Republicans, he was elected to the National Assembly for the third constituency of Drôme from 1993 to 1997 and again ...

(1958) *

Anne Lauvergeon Anne Lauvergeon (born 2 August 1959) is a French businesswoman who served as CEO of Areva from 2001 until 2011. According to ''The Wall Street Journal'', she is known internationally as one of the most prominent defenders of nuclear power. Ear ...

(1959), former CEO of

Areva Areva S.A. is a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through the French Alternative Energies and Atom ...

* Luc Oursel (1959-2014) * Jean-Laurent Bonnafé (1961), CEO of

BNP Paribas BNP Paribas is a French international banking group, founded in 2000 from the merger between Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP, "National Bank of Paris") and Paribas, formerly known as the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. The full name of the grou ...

Fabrice Brégier Fabrice Brégier (born 16 July 1961) is a French business executive. He was appointed president and chief operating officer of Airbus on 1 January 2017. He is on the executive committee of Airbus, which operates Airbus Commercial Aircraft, Air ...

(1961) *

Pascale Sourisse Pascale Sourisse (born 7 March 1962) is a French businesswoman. Born in Nantes, Pascale Sourisse graduated from the École Polytechnique (class of 1981) and Télécom ParisTech. She held management positions at the Compagnie Générale des Ea ...

(1962) *

Michel Combes Michel Combes (born 29 March 1962) is a French businessman and current Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group International ("SBGI"). Previously, he was Chief Executive Officer at Sprint, and has held CEO roles at Vodafone Europe, Alcatel-L ...

(1962) *

Patrick Pouyanné Patrick Jean Pouyanné (born 24 June 1963) is a French engineer who has been serving as chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies since 2014. Early life and education Pouyanné was born in Petit-Quevilly in the region of Seine-Maritime in France. He s ...

(1963), CEO of Total *

François Bourdoncle François Bourdoncle (born 1964) is founder and Chief Strategist of the search engine company Exalead. He is currently president oFB&Cie Literature * ''Semantic Analysis of Interval Congruences'', 1993, , Author François Bourdoncle, Springer-Verl ...

(1964) * Laure de La Raudière (1966) *

Thierry Garnier Thierry Garnier is a French businessman, chief executive officer (CEO) of Kingfisher, a UK based retail group, since September 2019. Early life Garnier earned degrees from École Polytechnique and École des Mines. Career Garnier worked for Car ...

(1966) * Isabelle Kocher (1966), former CEO of

Engie Engie SA is a French multinational utility company, headquartered in La Défense, Courbevoie, which operates in the fields of energy transition, electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear, renewable energy and petroleum. ...

Nicolas Véron Nicolas Véron () is a French economist. He is a senior fellow at Bruegel in Brussels, which he co-founded in 2002–05, and at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC, which he joined in 2009. In 2012, he was included ...

(1971) * Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol (1977) *

Alfred Galichon Alfred Galichon ( ; born May 4, 1977) is a French economist and mathematician. His work focuses on quantitative economics and econometrics. He is a professor of economics and of mathematics at New York University. Life and work Galichon was bor ...

(1977)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Corps Des Mines (France) mines French mining engineers Mines