(, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a grande école located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris.

The school was founded in 1794 by mathematician Gaspard Monge during the French RevolutionMichel Nusimovici, Les écoles de l'an III, 2010. and was militarized under Napoleon I in 1804. It is still supervised by the French Ministry of Armed Forces. Originally located in the Latin Quarter in central Paris, the institution moved to Palaiseau in 1976, in the Paris-Saclay technology cluster.

French engineering students undergo initial military training and have the status of paid officer cadets. The school has also been awarding doctorates since 1985, masters since 2005 and bachelors since 2017.

Notable alumni of the school include mathematicians Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, Henri Poincaré, Laurent Schwartz and Benoît Mandelbrot, physicists such as Henri Becquerel, Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, André-Marie Ampère and Augustin-Jean Fresnel, and economists Maurice Allais and Jean Tirole. French Marshals Joseph Joffre, Ferdinand Foch, Émile Fayolle and Michel-Joseph Maunoury were also Polytechnique engineering graduates.

Name

Founded in 1794 as the (Central School of Public Works), the school initially provided teaching limited to technical knowledge. In 1795, the school was renamed the "" (Polytechnic School). The neologism , appearing for the first time in a document published by Claude Prieur at the beginning of 1795, means "many arts", referring to the plurality of applied arts, sciences, technology, engineering and other academic subjects taught at the school.

Under the Restoration and the July Monarchy, the school was officially renamed the "École royale polytechnique". Under the First and the Second Empire, it was renamed the "École impériale polytechnique". The students, alumni, and graduates were called "Polytechnicians". The school was often simply called "Polytechnique".

The school has been nicknamed "l'X" since the middle of the 19th century. Two explanations have been put forward: one points to the two crossed cannons on the school's badge, while the other attributes it to the preeminence of mathematics in the training of Polytechnicians. According to L'Argot de l'X, published in 1894: "It is from the very importance given to the teaching of ana [analysis], the whole language of which is made up of x and y, that the nickname X came to designate Polytechnicians. Not all of them are mathematicians, but all have sufficient knowledge of differential and integral calculus for public service applications. Let us further say that in troubled times, such as [the Revolutions of] 1830 and 1848, this knowledge particularly helped them to avoid being confused with all the individuals who disguised themselves as Polytechnicians to give themselves the appearance of defenders of order. When they were encountered, they were asked the differential of sin x or log x, and if they did not answer, they were immediately locked up." However, in the 1994 edition, the origin of the nickname was again reported to be the crossing of the canons on the coat of arms.. The nickname "X" also applies to Polytechnicians themselves; female Polytechnicians are sometimes nicknamed "Xettes" or "X7", which is pronounced .

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the school and its students and alumni were nicknamed "pipo" and "carva".

History Foundation and early years

After the Revolution of 1789, the royal engineering schools were closed. The First Republic faced a shortage of engineers and military officers. Jacques-Élie Lamblardie, Gaspard Monge and Lazare Carnot, the founding fathers of the School, were charged with organizing a new "" (Central School of Public Works) which was officially created on 7 Vendémiaire, Year III (28 September 1794) and opened to students on 1 Nivôse, Year III (21 December 1794). The aim of the school was to train civil and military engineers. The school quickly welcomed 400 students of different levels. During the first three months, "revolutionary courses" were given in physics, mathematics and chemistry, after which they took exams to see if they could enter the civil service directly, or if they should continue their studies. The school was renamed the "" a year later. The change of name reflects the change of vocation of the school, which now prepares students for other specialized schools such as the École des mines and the École des ponts et chaussées. The curriculum lasted 3 years, the "regular courses" replaced the "revolutionary courses" and there were only 120 new students each year. The school was placed under the supervision of the Ministries of War and the Interior. A Journal Polytechnique (former name of "Journal de l'École polytechnique" ) was created in 1795. In 1799, the course was reduced from three to two years.

In 1805, Emperor Napoléon I transferred the school to Montagne Sainte-Geneviève in the of central Paris to become a military academy and gave it its motto: (For the Nation, Science, and Glory). In 1804, after the militarization of the school, its atmosphere changed significantly from a rather free spirit to a meticulous bureaucracy. Militarization was motivated by Napoleon's favorable opinion of Polytechnicians who had contributed to the Egyptian expedition and by his admiration for Monge and Laplace. Militarization was accompanied by a specialization of teaching towards mathematics.

In 1814, students participated in the fighting to defend Paris against the Sixth Coalition. After the restoration of 1816, the number of students was reduced to about seventy-five and the 'military arts' course was abolished. In 1817, King Louis XVIII demilitarized the and placed it under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior. In 1830, fifty students participated in the July Revolution. Various decrees were issued until 1832.Organisation de l'Ecole Polytechnique. Ordonnance du 13 novembre 1830, Mon. univ. (15 November 1830) 1465–1466; also in Le globe (18 November 1830) 1085–1086 [with editorial remarks]; also in J. gén. civil 10 (1831) 87–97. Above all, the school came under the administration of the Ministry of War, thus regaining its military status. The republican ideal prevailed at the school, as shown by the active participation of students in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848.

The French Second Empire Because of the tension between revolutionary ideas and the service of the state, the republican ideal gradually disappeared after 1851. Polytechnicians even found themselves on the side of the Versaillese when the Paris Commune was crushed in 1871. During the years 1871–1872, the number of students admitted per year doubled from 140 to 280. The Polytechnicians sought above all to strengthen their position in the spheres of power to compensate for their loss of influence in the technical field. While they could have turned to an engineering profession associated with industry, the Polytechnicians instead reinforced their sovereign vocation by joining the "state nobility" of the Second French Empire, whose origins, interests and convictions they gradually shared. The years 1860–1870 marked an important evolution since the school became more of a "conservatory of sciences" than a center of research and innovation, while extending its hold on the management of the industrial apparatus.

The World Wars During World War I, the students were mobilized and the school building was transformed into a hospital. No national entrance exam was held in 1915. More than eight hundred students died during the war. In 1921, students of foreign nationalities were allowed to take the entrance exam for the first time. During the Second World War, the was transferred to Lyon in the free zone, lost its military status, and its Parisian buildings were given to the Red Cross. More than four hundred students died during the war (Free French, French Resistance, Nazi camps).

From post-war to today

In 1944, the School was again placed under the administration of the Ministry of War. In 1970, the School became a state-sponsored civilian institution under the auspices of the Ministry of Defence. The first female students were admitted in 1972. One woman, Anne Chopinet, was class valedictorian. In 1976, the School moved from the center of Paris to Palaiseau, in the southern suburbs. In 1985, it began awarding doctoral degrees. In 1994, the bicentennial celebration was presided over by President François Mitterrand. In 1995, a new entrance exam was set up for international students and in 2000, the Ingénieur polytechnicien program was extended from 3 to 4 years.

Locations

Early locations In 1794, was first housed in the Palais Bourbon. A year later, it moved to the Hôtel de Lassay, a in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.

Montagne Saint-Geneviève (1805–1976) In 1805, when he placed the School under military administration, Napoleon transferred it to the , in the former premises of the colleges of Navarre, Tournai and Boncourt, now the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. The Paris campus was located near the Panthéon, at 5 rue Descartes, and was nicknamed "Carva" by the students.

Palaiseau (from 1976) Located in the suburbs of Paris, about from the city center, École polytechnique is a campus-based institution. It offers teaching facilities, student housing, dining and hospitality services, and a range of sports facilities dedicated to the 4,600 people who live on campus.

The nearest regional train station is Lozère (line B, zone 4 of the RER network). Several buses also connect École polytechnique to the Massy-Palaiseau RER station and Massy TGV station.École polytechnique – Un cadre unique. Polytechnique.edu. Retrieved on 16 June 2014. The future Paris Métro Line 18 will stop at an aerial station near the campus.

The campus is close to other scientific institutions in Saclay (Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives), Orsay (Paris-Saclay University) and Bures (Institut des hautes études scientifiques and some laboratories of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique).

Organization and administration

Specific status

École polytechnique is an institution of higher educationCode de l'éducation, L675-1 under the supervision of the French Ministry of Defence, through the General Directorate for ArmamentArrêté du 12 septembre 2005 relatif à l'exercice de la tutelle du ministre de la défense sur divers organismes publics confiés à la délégation générale pour l'armement, article 1 (administratively speaking, it is a national public establishment of an administrative character). It has a dual status, being an engineering school that trains civilian engineers and scientists, but also officers for the three French armies. The aim is to provide the French state with a scientific and technical elite. The number of graduates becoming civil servants and officers has weakened since 1950: today, only 10 to 20% of the school's students join the ranks of the administration or the army, while 20% go into research and the rest into engineering or management.