The corps members are the ingénieurs de l'armement, or ingénieurs du corps de l'armement, nicknamed "IA" in French. They are high level engineers and public servants with military status, originating for most of them (more than 2/3 by decree[3]) from Ecole polytechnique[4] and trained at Institut supérieur de l'aéronautique et de l'espace (ISAE) (formation SUPAERO), ENSTA Paris, or other French or international universities.
Corps of Powders and Explosives engineers (corps des ingénieurs des poudres et explosifs)
Corps of Military Telecom engineers (corps des ingénieurs des télécom militaires)
Corps of Armament Fabrications engineers (corps des ingénieurs des fabrications d'armement)
In 1743, the "Ecole des constructeurs de vaisseaux royaux" was created to train Naval engineers. The school is known today as ENSTA ParisTech.
Corps of Armament and high-tech Colbertism
The role played by the Corps of Armament in the development of the French aerospace and defence industry, in particular with the logic of Grands Projets (Concorde, Airbus,[9] Ariane,...), can be compared with the role of the Corps des télécommunications in the development of the French telecom industry (telephone, Minitel,...), the role of the Corps des mines, or the Corps des ponts with their respective Grands Projets (Nuclear industry, TGV,...). They illustrate Colbertism, a French version of mercantilism.
Colbertism dates back to the 17th century, influenced at that time by the Chinese system. French high public servants are nicknamed "mandarins", referring to their Chinese counterparts.
The French economist Elie Cohen described the effects of French Colbertism in the field of High tech in a book entitled "High tech Colbertism - Economics of the Grand Projet" (1995).[10]
High tech Colbertism can be characterized by a prevalent role played in France by the Administration and the Grand Corps. A typical Colbertist mechanism is the "pantouflage" where top civil servants become Heads of French public companies. The word "pantouflage" cannot be directly translated in English nor in any Western language but can be translated in Japanese where a comparable mechanism exists. The Japanese word is "amakudari" ("fallen from the sky").