“You have chosen a school for boys and on top of that a military school. Aren’t you afraid that you will be taken for a monster and that people will move away from you?” These are the kinds of questions a journalist asks Anne Chopinet, first woman received major in the Polytechnique entrance exam, in a report broadcast at 8 p.m. from the ORTF in 1972. IHe does not know that he is facing a future great engineer, who has served several ministries.
50 years ago, to the day, on August 2, 1972, seven women learned of their admission to Polytechnique, the very prestigious engineering school. A first. Created in 1794 to train engineers in the service of the State, the school took 178 years to open up to women. Fifty years later, there are thousands of them serving as senior civil servants or in large companies.
Dominique Sénéquier is one of those women who joined l’X in 1972, a moment she describes as historic: “It was an incredible event! Michel Debré, who was Minister of the Armed Forces, received us. Journalists, of course, were after us a lot to see as a phenomenon if you want. There were only seven of us. We didn’t know where we were. put on for military service and so it was kind of a headache but fun for us.”
“We could see that it was a pioneering role. It was wonderfully nice!”
Dominique Senequierat franceinfo
Sympathetic, and even unique, according to this president of an asset management company. For her, the school has since made giant strides, with more than 4,000 women having received the engineering degree. “There is a large community. There are a few presidents of the CAC 40 who are polytechnicians. The Prime Minister is a polytechnician so in 50 years, the progress is immense!”
Despite everything, criticisms remain today, on the feminization of Polytechnique. The average of women in each promotion is around 20%. “The problem is more upstream, on recruitment in preparatory classes. I think that there is still a lot of progress that has been made with all the measures to raise girls’ awareness of scientific careers which are made from high school onwards”, says Juliette, student in fourth year of the X engineering cycle. “I think it is more on this voice that we must continue to dig because the ratio of Polytechnique is not particularly worse than the ratio of another engineering school in terms of representation of girls.
On its website, Polytechnique displays its ambition of feminization. The objective is to reach 30% of women per class by 2026.
Women at Polytechnique: report by Arthur Fradin
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