The ''Corps des ponts, des eaux et des forêts'' (in English "Corps of Bridges, Waters and Forests") is a 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 ...

( grand corps de l'Etat). Its members are senior officials, mainly employed by the French Ministry of Environment and Energy and by the Ministry of Agriculture. Most of them are 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 ...

, where they are selected based on their ranking, and from

AgroParisTech AgroParisTech (officially ''Institut des sciences et industries du vivant et de l'environnement'', or Paris Institute of Technology for Life, Food and Environmental Sciences)English naming according tEnglish brochure is a French higher educati ...

where they are selected based on an entrance exam, others are from

École normale supérieure (Ulm) An ''école normale supérieure'' () or ENS is a type of publicly funded higher education institution in France. A portion of the student body, admitted via a highly-selective competitive examination process, are French civil servants and a ...

or the regular curriculum of the

École des ponts ParisTech 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 ...

. People entering the Corps (around 60 each year) are trained either at

or abroad in specific fields, in particular when they are willing to pursue a PhD. In 2002, the ''Corps des ponts et chaussées'', and the different corps formed by the civil aviation engineers, the geography engineers and the meteorological engineers merged. In 2009, the ''Corps des ponts et chaussées'' (in English "Corps of Bridges and Roads") and the ''Corps du génie rural, des eaux et des forêts'' (in English "Corps of Rural Engineering, Waters and Forests") merged into the current Corps des ponts, des eaux et des forêts. Many executive positions in France's industries and administration are held by Corps des Ponts engineers. Being admitted to the Corps des Ponts program is still considered a significant fast-track for executive careers.

Important former or current members

* Paul-Louis Arslanian *

Henri Becquerel Antoine Henri Becquerel (; 15 December 1852 – 25 August 1908) was a French engineer, physicist, Nobel laureate, and the first person to discover evidence of radioactivity. For work in this field he, along with Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pie ...

* Christian Beullac *

Fulgence Bienvenüe Fulgence Bienvenüe (; 27 January 1852 – 3 August 1936) was a noted French civil engineer, best known for his role in the construction of the Paris Métro, and has been called "Le Père du Métro" (Father of the Metro). A native of Uzel in Br ...

Jean-Baptiste Biot Jean-Baptiste Biot (; ; 21 April 1774 – 3 February 1862) was a French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who co-discovered the Biot–Savart law of magnetostatics with Félix Savart, established the reality of meteorites, made an early ba ...

* Augustin-Louis Cauchy *

Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis (; 21 May 1792 – 19 September 1843) was a French mathematician, mechanical engineer and scientist. He is best known for his work on the supplementary forces that are detected in a rotating frame of reference, le ...

Henry Darcy Henry Philibert Gaspard Darcy (, 10 June 1803 – 3 January 1858) was a French engineer who made several important contributions to hydraulics, including Darcy’s law for flow in porous media. Early life Darcy was born in Dijon, France, on J ...

* Jules Dupuit *

Augustin-Jean Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Newton's corpuscular th ...

* Freycinet *

Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (, , ; 6 December 1778 – 9 May 1850) was a French chemist and physicist. He is known mostly for his discovery that water is made of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen (with Alexander von Humboldt), for two laws ...

Pierre-Simon Girard Pierre-Simon Girard (4 November 1765 – 30 November 1836) was a French mathematician and engineer, who worked on fluid mechanics. Girard was born in Caen. A prodigy who invented a water turbine at the age of ten, he worked as an engineer at t ...

* Philippe LeBon *

Joseph Liouville Joseph Liouville (; ; 24 March 1809 – 8 September 1882) was a French mathematician and engineer. Life and work He was born in Saint-Omer in France on 24 March 1809. His parents were Claude-Joseph Liouville (an army officer) and Thérèse ...

Étienne-Louis Malus Étienne-Louis Malus (; ; 23 July 1775 – 23 February 1812) was a French officer, engineer, physicist, and mathematician. Malus was born in Paris, France. He participated in Napoleon's expedition into Egypt (1798 to 1801) and was a member o ...

Pierre Méchain Pierre François André Méchain (; 16 August 1744 – 20 September 1804) was a French astronomer and surveyor who, with Charles Messier, was a major contributor to the early study of deep-sky objects and comets. Life Pierre Méchain was born i ...

* Charles Joseph Minard *

Claude-Louis Navier Claude-Louis Navier (born Claude Louis Marie Henri Navier; ; 10 February 1785 – 21 August 1836) was a French mechanical engineer, affiliated with the French government, and a physicist who specialized in continuum mechanics. The Navier–Stok ...

Jean Peyrelevade Jean Peyrelevade (born 24 October 1939) is a senior French center-left politician and business leader. Beliefs and political career In 1981 Peyrelevade was appointed deputy director of the cabinet and economic adviser to French Prime Ministe ...

Gaspard de Prony Baron Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony (22 July 1755 – 29 July 1839) was a French mathematician and engineer, who worked on hydraulics. He was born at Chamelet, Beaujolais, France and died in Asnières-sur-Seine, France. Educati ...

Marie François Sadi Carnot Marie François Sadi Carnot (; 11 August 1837 – 25 June 1894) was a French statesman, who served as the President of France from 1887 until his assassination in 1894. Early life Marie François Sadi Carnot was the son of the statesman Hippo ...

(former president of the French Republic) *

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (also called Bernardin de St. Pierre) (19 January 1737, in Le Havre – 21 January 1814, in Éragny, Val-d'Oise) was a French writer and botanist. He is best known for his 1788 novel '' Paul et Virginie'', ...

Louis Vicat Louis Vicat (31 March 1786, Nevers – 10 April 1861, Grenoble) was a French engineer. He graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1804 and the École des Ponts et Chaussées in 1806. Vicat studied the setting of mortars and developed his own ...

Jacques Villiers Jacques Villiers (26 August 1924 – 13 March 2012) was a French aerospace engineer and public servant. He was the founder of the Centre d'études de la navigation aérienne (French air navigation center) and co-founder of the CAUTRA syste ...

* François Philippe Voisin *

Jean Tirole Jean Tirole (born 9 August 1953) is a French professor of economics at Toulouse 1 Capitole University. He focuses on industrial organization, game theory, banking and finance, and economics and psychology. In 2014 he was awarded the Nobel Memor ...

()

References

External links

Official Corps des ponts website
��{{in lang, fr; ''Corps of Bridges, Waters and Forests''. .02

Bridges A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually someth ...

Bridges in France Forests of France Water in France * *

Important former or current members

References

Further reading

External links