Samenvatting

The actions and demonstrations of the gilets jaunes (the yellow vests) prompted the newly appointed French president Macron to make a promise: to reform the public administration and other training for top officials. With regard to the latter, the idea was to abolish the existing ENA (‘École Nationale d’Administration’) and create a new institution: an institution that would offer opportunities to people from all kinds of social classes and not just to a small elite. Macron left no doubt about it: down with the ENA and on the way to a new institution: the INSP (‘Institut national du service public’). The time has come. The ENA was abolished on 1 January 2022 and the INSP has replaced it. The new institute is intended to ensure that the top civil servants shaped by the institute see their government task primarily as a social task and that they are also more at the service of society, instead of working on their own career. The question in all this is whether the INSP can achieve Macron’s ambitions. Or, to put it differently, is the INSP a real innovation or is it more like ‘old wine in new bottles’?