“Never let yourself be told that a sector is not for you. Never let yourself be told that a job or a dream can only be written in the masculine,” declared the Prime Minister in front of a very feminine audience of current and former students of the prestigious engineering school.
“Whatever your dreams, there are always ominous birds, prisoners of clichés, fears and conservatisms, who will tell you that it is not possible. Make them lie, ”she added, before talking behind closed doors with some polytechnic and high school girls who are preparing for the engineering school competitions.
“Basically, only one thing matters: that you can go after your dreams”, launched Ms. Borne, who had dedicated her appointment to Matignon “to all the little girls” and greeted the only woman before her to have occupied this position, Edith Cresson.
Seven women joined the École Polytechnique for the first time in 1972. At the time, they represented 2% of students. Today they are 20%.
“Polytechnique is a school of excellence, knowledge and research, (…) it is also a spirit of solidarity, a sense of commitment and a path towards emancipation”, underlined the head of government, who had been able to obtain a scholarship and integrate this school as a pupil of the nation, after the suicide of her father, a former deportee, when she was 11 years old.
However “we are still far from the mark”, because women “are still too few to (present themselves)” for this competition, and there is a “lack of diversity in our basic sciences and among our engineers”, lamented the Prime Minister. All training combined, the share of female engineers in 2020 was only 28%.
“Engineering is a profession whose very foundation is to solve problems” and faced with ecological and energy transitions, “we need engineers”, she insisted, while France also lacks mathematics teachers and teacher-researchers in this discipline, which will again become compulsory for all high school students in the general stream from the start of the 2023 school year.