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, 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 c ...

. 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, Sav ...

, 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. Loc ...

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

, École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris 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 École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris. 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 (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 (1816-1872) * Charles de Freycinet (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 (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 (1862-1942) * Georges Friedel (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 (AR ...

(1871-1950), president of

during the 3rd republic * Conrad Schlumberger (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 com ...

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 ...

(1886-1980) * Paul Lévy (1886-1971) * Léon Daum (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 (1909-1991) * Maurice Allais (1911-2010), 1988 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences * Maurice Lauré (1917-2001) * Jacques Friedel (1921-2014) * Claude Bloch (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 liter ...

(1925-2021) * (1925-1997) * Georges Besse (1927-1986) * Robert Dautray (1928) * Yves Jeannin (1931) * Roger Balian (1933) * Gérard Théry (1933-2021) * Charles-Michel Marle (1934) * Lionel Stoléru (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 t ...

(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 fo ...

and former Minister of Finances * Jean-Louis Beffa (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 variet ...

* Didier Lombard (1942) * Bertrand Collomb (1942-2019) * Thierry de Montbrial (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 fir ...

(1943) * Jacques Vernier (1944) * Thierry Desmarest (1945), former CEO of

TotalEnergies TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration an ...

* Noël Forgeard (1946), former CEO of

Airbus 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: ' ...

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 Chief ...

(1946) * Jean-Martin Folz (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 (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 (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 Pari ...

* Jacques Biot (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, Sav ...

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 Levallo ...

(1953) * François Loos (1953) * Jacques Aschenbroich (1954), CEO of Valeo * Jean-Bernard Lévy (1955), CEO of

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

* Laurence Danon (1956) * Jean-Baptiste Leblond (1957) * Jean-Pierre Clamadieu (1958), CEO of Solvay, Chairman of Rhodia * Hervé Mariton (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 Ato ...

* 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 gro ...

* Fabrice Brégier (1961) * Pascale Sourisse (1962) * Michel Combes (1962) * Patrick Pouyanné (1963), CEO of Total * François Bourdoncle (1964) * Laure de La Raudière (1966) * Thierry Garnier (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 (1971) * Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol (1977) * Alfred Galichon (1977)

References

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