L'idéal technocratique des ingénieurs à l'épreuve de la construction de l’Etat : Maghreb, Machrek, Indochine au XXe siècle

Abstract

In this paper, I expose the biographical guiding lines of a number of French Ecole polytechnique graduates from North Africa, Indochina and Middle East. The first generation of engineers trained in France took control of economic key sectors thanks to their engagements in nationalist and liberation movements. Yet, once they were in technical commanding positions, they claimed political neutrality in contrast with their previous commitment and with the strategic part that they were playing in mediating modernity. I will question the technocratic ideal of these state engineers as a contradictory product of their science acquired in the West and their aspiration towards independence. Along these lines, I suggest explanatory hypotheses concerning the unfinished establishment of the French state-building model in the above regions.