This year has seen the first ENSAE win at the French Debating Association tournament since 2001 and ENSAE has now become the first school with five victories, the target to be shot among all the prestigious schools and universities, from Paris to Toulouse.

When I arrived at ENSAE three years ago, M.Pauvert and the Languages department were willing to reassert the value and use of English within the school and renew the proposal made to students. The objective was to offer them new perspectives, challenges and courses that would make English more challenging and professionally valuable for them. I  was offered the opportunity to bring back to life more than a class, but a spirit that had been dying for years. So I gladly took upon the challenge to claim back the place of ENSAE within the schools tournament.

I met numerous students, all smart and passionate, desperate to find a way to express themselves, but who also needed to be coached and learn how to structure, how to express, how to compromise, how to convince, and how to please.

In a field where everything is about competition, what the students at ENSAE originally lacked in class was not arguments, nor wits, nor conviction, but the ability to see that winning over an audience is more important than actually winning against a competitor. The debating class is about starting from being smart and then using your wits to become likeable and convincing.

In this class, I like to think that not only students improve their language skills in English, but also acquire transferable skills that will be useful to them throughout their careers, for the key to success in a field where they are surrounded by smart people, is how to outsmart through wits, eloquence and charisma. This is what we strive to, what has brought them to win this year, and what will continue in the years to come, with the continually renewed enthusiasm of the students at ENSAE.

In this special number, we are offering you a little insight of the Debating Club at ENSAE, since its creation there in 1994, with the appreciated testimony of the FDA President, Declan McCavanagh, through this year’s students’ impressions after winning at the Assemblée Nationale, and to the testimony of an ENSAE veteran who came back this year after a few years to participate in the Vet Tournament.

Marie-Eve PICHON, teacher and debating coach at ENSAE

2017 FDA Final – ENSAE vs ILERI

THE ORIGINS OF THE FDA AT ENSAE

Students’ Voices

Students’ Voices: “What drives you to debating?”

STUDENTS’ VOICES: “What did you get from this class?”

An ironic vision of debating, from an anonymous student, master of provocation and irony, who leaves you with his thoughts:

Upon entering ENSAE, I was given the choice between several English groups, and originally set my course towards the debating group without much afterthought, my mind having been severely numbed by two debilitating years of classes préparatoires and the stifling heat of that awful summer of 2016.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised, as amid the indescribable intellectual starvation which plagued much of the first year, across the barren plains of economics and the infertile fields of mathematics, the debating class shone through like a gleaming ray of sunlight, allowing me an all-too-necessary weekly gulp of fresh air which maintained me somewhat alive during those painful winter months.

Indeed, debating allows for two things: defending ideas that aren’t necessarily our own, – a boon for vacuous, shallow people such as me who haven’t got any meaningful ideas to begin with – which does much to satisfy the inner hypocrite residing in all of us, and expressing them as you please, which feeds on that latent exhibitionism which, let’s admit it, we all possess.

It is a wonder to no one that, in the outside world, the fundamentals of probability, or the subtleties of algebra aren’t going to do anyone much good. Essential qualities to succeed, that is, namely, treachery, hypocrisy, and more generally an utter contempt for truth are developed solely in debating class (and politics, obviously).

I may even add that individual initiative, too, has all but disappeared – if it has ever been there in the first place – from education, where compliance with established methods and fossilized modes of thought constitutes a most praised – although altogether most frequent – quality among students, except, again, in debating class, where, as the proverb goes, the end justifies the means.

In order to develop this aforementioned innate faculty for lying, one needs a teacher, a tutor which would direct the growth of the blooming tree of demagoguery and hypocrisy towards new heights – or new depths? – of bad faith, and I must say Ms. Pichon succeeded admirably in this respect. I had long ago lost all hope of discovering someone as completely devoid of scruples as myself, but it seems that hope was not in vain.

Debating seems to me the only island, in the putrid ocean of mediocrity into which the world has sunk, where conversation as it was originally meant to be, can happen, where we can escape both purely technical, disembodied, altogether sterile, mathematical ramblings, and smalltalk.

A « Veteran »’s testimony after a brilliant come back

It was the most peculiar experience. Like traveling back in time, only better. Here I was, 23 years old again, with young people of my age, fighting the good fight, we the Government against the wretched Opposition. « This House would disrespect its Elders » You bet. The hell with those old hags. The future belongs to the young.

Actually… no. I was 44 years old, by far the Eldest member of the team. When we first met to discuss our strategy, one of the younger members of my Government had pointedly (if not tactfully) remarked that I was old enough to be her father. At one point in the discussion she mentioned men going through a middle-life crisis and leaving their wife for the baby-sitter. Well, I wasn’t leaving my wife anytime soon: I coached her team to victory in 1998, the same year we got married, two years after my own team got pummeled in the semi-finals. I was especially proud of the 1998 ENSAE victory in the first round: the opponents from Polytechnique had an excellent command of English and a knack for improvisation. The ENSAE team destroyed them despite a less-than-perfect mastery of the language… through hard work, humour, and the utter dedication of their coach. After that they sailed to victory, cut into the ENA team in the finals like it was butter.

Anyway, here we were again, 2017, Veterans’ debate. So happy to see Declan… The guy has not changed one bit, larger than life as always, took us for a beer (maybe even a few) late into the night after the debate. And the people around… like a big family. We debaters recognize each other in a heartbeat. Young students, seasoned professionals, drifters… who cares? We are one.

I have to be humble: it has become far more difficult today. So many teams, so many schools… reaching the finals is an achievement in itself. In my time it was a toss-up. I salute the 2017 ENSAE team: Hear! Hear! You guys rock. Your coach must be awesome.

In 1996 I was in the Opposition. We were fighting the motion « This House believes the family is dead ». I was First speaker of my team. My speech started with « It seems we have been invited to a funeral… » I heard roars of laughter, it was great, we were off to a good start. Then we lost. My teammates were to blame, for sure.

In 2017 I lost with the Government. But I was very happy. First, consigning the Elders to the dustbin of history is all very well, but what happens when you’re an Elder yourself ? Second, this time I won the prize for Best Speaker. I felt vindicated, after the injustice I suffered in 1996 when that prize escaped me against all odds. Third, I met a whole lot of funny, sparkling, enthusiastic people of all ages. And that is the signature of the FDA.

David Lubek