Corps des mines

Members of the Corps des mines, from the left to the right and the top to the bottom: Jacques Attali (author, economist), Henri Poincaré (mathematician, physicist), Anne Lauvergeon (business executive), Maurice Allais (Nobel Prize in Economics), Patrick Kron (business executive) and Albert Lebrun (President of France).

The Corps des mines is the foremost technical Grand Corps of the French State (French: 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. Each year, the Corps recruits between 10 and 20 members. Most of them are alumni from École polytechnique, who are usually among the top ranked students, others come from École normale supérieure (ENS), Télécom Paris or regular graduates of the Mines ParisTech. 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.