The quadrangle at the main ENS building on rue d'Ulm is known as the Cour aux Ernests – the Ernests being the goldfish in the pond.

The École Normale Supérieure (also known as Normale Sup', Normale, ENS, ENS-Paris, ENS-Ulm or Ulm), written École normale supérieure in french is an elite French grande école, whose main campus is located around the rue d'Ulm (Ulm Street) in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. In architecture a quadrangle, or more colloquially, quad, is a space on a college or university campus usually but not always enclosed on four sides by buildings. ... Alternative meaning: Elite (computer game) In sociology as in general usage, the elite (the elect; sometimes the French form élite is used) refers to a relatively small dominant group within a larger society, which enjoys privileged status and, almost invariantly, exploits individuals of lower social status. ... The grandes écoles (French for great schools) of France are higher education establishments outside of the mainstream framework of the public universities. ... Ulm is a city in Germany, part of the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg (about 100 km south-east of Stuttgart). ... The 5e arrondissement is one of the central arrondissements of Paris, France, located on the Left Bank. ... The Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. ...

ENS has annex campuses on Boulevard Jourdan (in Paris) and in Montrouge (a suburb). The Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Montrouge is a commune and a canton in the southwestern suburbs of Paris in France. ...

Overview

Originally meant to train high school teachers through the agrégation, it is now an elite institution training researchers, university professors, and civil servants (as well as highschool teachers, in particular in the humanities). It focuses on the association of training and research, with an emphasis on freedom of curriculum. In France, the agrégation is a civil service competitive examination for some positions in the public education system. ... The humanities are a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studying aspects of the human condition and a qualitative approach that generally prevents a single paradigm from coming to define any discipline. ...

Its alumni include eight laureates of the Fields Medal, which is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for the mathematical sciences, as well as Nobel Prize winners in both science and literature. The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to up to four mathematicians (not over forty years of age) at each International Congress of International Mathematical Union, since 1936 and regularly since 1948 at the initiative of the Canadian mathematican John Charles Fields. ... The Nobel Prizes (pronounced no-BELL or no-bell) are awarded annually to people who have done outstanding research, invented groundbreaking techniques or equipment, or made outstanding contributions to society. ...

Apart from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, three other écoles normales supérieures have been established, with similar goals:

• École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (sciences),
• École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines (humanities),
• École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (applied sciences, foreign languages, technical studies).

The normaliens, as the students of the several ENS are known, keep a level of excellence in the various disciplines in which they are trained. Normaliens from France and other European Union countries are considered civil servants in training, and as such paid a monthly salary, in exchange for an agreement to serve France for 10 years, including those of studies. This exclusivity clause, seldom applied in practice, is redeemable (often by the hiring firm), though.

Each year, there are about 100 normaliens students enrolled in the sciences, and 100 in the humanities.

Apart from the normaliens, ENS also welcomes selected foreign students ("international selection"), who receive a stipend, as well as, selected students from neighbouring universities, to follow the same curriculum. It also participates in various graduate programs and has extensive research laboratories. Stipend [Lat. ...

The fictitious mathematician Nicolas Bourbaki's "association of collaborators" is based at ENS. Nicolas Bourbaki is the pseudonym under which a group of mainly French 20th-century mathematicians wrote a series of books of exposition of modern advanced mathematics, beginning in 1935. ...

Famous alumni

(Non-exhaustive list.)

• Scientists
  • Louis Pasteur (1843)
  • Nobel Prize holders
    • Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
    • Pierre-Gilles de Gennes
    • Gabriel Lippmann
    • Louis Néel
    • Jean Baptiste Perrin
    • Paul Sabatier
  • mathematicians
    • Evariste Galois
    • Henri Cartan
    • André Weil
    • Fields Medal holders (all French holders of the Fields medal were educated at the École Normale Supérieure)
      • Laurent Schwartz
      • Jean-Pierre Serre
      • René Thom
      • Alain Connes
      • Pierre-Louis Lions
      • Jean-Christophe Yoccoz
      • Laurent Lafforgue

• Humanities

• • philosophers
    • Louis Althusser
    • Simone de Beauvoir
    • Emile Auguste Chartier "Alain"
    • Henri Bergson (1878) (Nobel Prise 1927)
    • Hippolyte Taine (1893)
    • Jean-Paul Sartre (1924)
    • Raymond Aron (1924)
    • Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1926)
    • Michel Foucault (1946)
    • Jacques Derrida (1952)
    • André Comte-Sponville (1972)
    • Simone Weil
  • politicians
    • Jean Jaurès (1878)
    • Léon Blum (1890) (expelled during his third year)
    • Édouard Herriot (1891)
    • Georges Pompidou (1931)
    • Alain Juppé (1964)
    • Laurent Fabius (1966)
    • Léopold Sédar Senghor
  • sociologists (they studied philosophy at ENS)
    • Emile Durkheim (1879)
    • Pierre Bourdieu (1951)
  • writers (some were philosophers too)
    • Romain Rolland (1886) (Nobel Prize 1915)
    • Jean Giraudoux
    • Jean-Paul Sartre ((he turned down the Nobel Prize in 1964)
    • Léopold Sédar Senghor
    • Charles Péguy (1894)
    • Julien Gracq (1930)

Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) was a French microbiologist and chemist. ... The Nobel Prizes (pronounced no-BELL or no-bell) are awarded annually to people who have done outstanding research, invented groundbreaking techniques or equipment, or made outstanding contributions to society. ... Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (born April 1, French physicist working at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France, where he has also studied physics. ... Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (born October 24, 1932) is a French physicist and Nobel laureate. ... Gabriel Lippmann (August 16, 1845 - July 13, 1921) was a French physicist and Nobel Prize winner. ... Jean Baptiste Perrin, generally known as Jean Perrin (Lille, September 30, 1870 – April 17, New York, 1942), was a French physicist. ... Paul Sabatier is also the name of a Nobel Prize-winning chemist. ... Galois was young-looking for his age and had black hair. ... Henri Cartan (born July 8, 1904) is a son of Elie Cartan, and is, as his father was, a distinguished and influential mathematician. ... André Weil (May 6, 1906 _ August 6, 1998) was one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century, a founding member of the influential Bourbaki group. ... The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to up to four mathematicians (not over forty years of age) at each International Congress of International Mathematical Union, since 1936 and regularly since 1948 at the initiative of the Canadian mathematican John Charles Fields. ... Laurent Schwartz (5 March 1915 – 4 July 2002) was a French mathematician. ... Jean-Pierre Serre (born September 15, 1926) is one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century, active in algebraic geometry, number theory and topology. ... Alain Connes (born April 1, 1947) is a French mathematician, currently Professor at the College de France (Paris, France), IHES (Bures-sur-Yvette, France) and Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee). ... Pierre-Louis Lions (August 11, 1956 - ) is a French mathematician. ... Jean-Christophe Yoccoz (born May 29, 1957) is a French mathematician. ... Laurent Lafforgue (born November 6, 1966) is a French mathematician. ... Louis Althusser (October 19, 1918 - October 23, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. ... Simone de Beauvoir Simone de Beauvoir (January 9, 1908 - April 14, 1986) was a French author, philosopher, and feminist. ... Emile Auguste Chartier (Alain) (March 3, 1868 - June 2, 1951) was a French writer. ... Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (October 18, 1859 - January 4, 1941) was a French philosopher, influential in France, but out of the main currents of his time. ... Portrait of Hippolyte Taine on French postage stamp of 1966 Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (April 21, 1828 - March 5, 1893) was a French critic and historian. ... Jean Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Sartre (June 21, 1905–April 15, 1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, dramatist, novelist and critic. ... Raymond Aron (March 14, 1905 Paris, France - October 17, 1983 Paris, France) was a French philosopher and sociologist and political commentator. ... Maurice Merleau-Ponty (March 14, 1908 - May 4, 1961) was a French phenomenologist philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl, and often somewhat mistakenly classified as an existentialist thinker because of his close association with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and his distinctly Heideggerian conception of Being. ... Michel Foucault Michel Foucault (October 15, 1926 – June 26, 1984) was a French philosopher and held a chair at the Collège de France, a chair to which he gave the title The History of Systems of Thought. His writings have had an enormous impact on academia: Foucaults influence extends... Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French literary critic and philosopher of Jewish descent, considered the first to develop deconstruction after it emerged in the work of Martin Heidegger. ... André Comte-Sponville (born 1952) is a French atheist and materialist philosopher. ... Simone Weil should not be confused with Simone Veil, a French politician. ... Jean Jaurès Jean Léon Jaurès ( September 3, 1859 - July 31, 1914) was a French Socialist leader. ... Léon Blum Léon Blum ( 9 April 1872 - 30 March 1950), French socialist leader and Prime Minister, was born in Paris, into a middle-class Jewish family. ... French politician Édouard Herriot Édouard Herriot (July 5, 1872 at Troyes, France - March 26, 1957 at Lyon, France) was a French Radical politician of the Third Republic who served three times as Prime Minister and for many years as President of the Chamber of Deputies. ... Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou (July 5, 1911–April 2, 1974) was President of France from 1969 until his death in 1974. ... Alain Juppé (born August 15, 1945) is a French politician; among other positions, he was Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997. ... Laurent Fabius (born August 20, 1946) is a former prime minister of France. ... Léopold Sédar Senghor ( October 9, 1906– December 20, 2001) was an Seneglese poet and politician who served as the first president of Senegal ( 1960– 1980). ... David Émile Durkheim (April 15, 1858 - November 15, 1917) is known as the founder of modern sociology. ... Pierre-Félix Bourdieu (August 1, 1930-January 23, 2002) was a French sociologist. ... Romain Rolland (January 29, 1866 - December 30, 1944) was a French writer. ... Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux (October 29, 1882 - January 31, 1944) was a French dramatist who wrote internationally acclaimed plays. ... Charles Péguy (January 7, 1873-September 4, 1914) was a noted French poet and essayist. ... Julien Gracq (born 1910) is a French writer. ...

Famous professors

• Louis Althusser
• Samuel Beckett
• Pierre Bonnet
• Paul Celan
• Laurent Freidel
• Ernest Lavisse

Louis Althusser (October 19, 1918 - October 23, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. ... Quantum Leap Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (April 13, 1906 – December 22, 1989) was an Irish playwright, novelist and poet. ... Paul Celan was the most frequently used pseudonym of Paul Antschel (the pseudonymous adopts an anagram of his surname in Romanian, Ancel) (November 23, 1920 - approximately April 20, 1970), who is considered one of the few major poets of the post-World War II era. ... Laurent Freidel is a physicist, working in the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon, France. ... Ernest Lavisse (December 17, 1842 - August 18, 1922) was a French historian. ...

See also

• Alumni of the École Normale Supérieure
• École Polytechnique

The cadets of Polytechnique rushed to the defense of Paris against the foreign armies in 1814. ...

External link

• Official website (http://www.ens.fr/index_en.php/)

ENS can also refer to studies of society and the environment. Terms like SOSE (Studies of Society & the Environment) not only refer to social sciences but also studies of the environment. ...