Grandstand. In Germany, a large part of the elite is formed by research: 40% of doctorate holders work in particular in public administration (apart from teaching and research). They devoted several years to in-depth research, modestly contributing their stone to the edifice of knowledge, before engaging in public action and, for some, reaching the highest responsibilities. Thus, Angela Merkel and Helmut Kohl were both holders of a doctorate: the first, scientific, in chemistry; the second, literary, in history.
The situation is quite different in France, where only 10% of trained doctors go into the civil service, with, in total, in high administration, seven times fewer holders of a doctorate than in Germany.
The consequences are significant. It is not surprising that French public decision-makers, who are more distant from the world of research, place less value on the scientific approach in the broad sense than their German counterparts. Public investment in research is, in fact, 20% higher in Germany than in France.
Training through research also modifies the approach to problems. After three to five years of work at the cutting edge of knowledge, the doctor knows that knowledge is never final. He knows that he must ensure that he collects the best expertise, confronts them with each other and with reality. He knows that to a given problem there can be several solutions, and that a solution can be the source of new questions.
school of humility
The administration would gain a great deal from welcoming senior civil servants trained in this school of humility, alongside traditional profiles, selected via traditional channels for their speed in solving problems with an already known solution, and the more often single.
The French senior civil service would thus also find personnel capable of acting as a conduit between the world of scientific research and that of decision-makers, a crucial role at a time when politicians are called upon to make decisions in complex and shifting: pandemic management, energy choices, network regulation, etc.
The small number of senior civil servants capable today of deciphering and synthesizing the most recent research in the immediate entourage of politicians can lead them to rely on outdated or fragmented information, or even to draw false certainties from it. . And in times of great turbulence, the general public, tossed about from decision to decision, sometimes apparently contradictory, comes to reject all the measures proposed.
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