Welcome to a world where academics are nicknamed “rats.” A young student can be strangled by an instructor. The punishments are daily. This universe is the prestigious Saint-Cyr military school, in Coëtquidan, in Morbihan, told by Guillaume Ancel, retired from the army in 2005. This former lieutenant-colonel, known for his questioning of the role of France in the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, recounts in Saint-Cyr, at the Grande Muette school (Flammarion) his painful experience of training the future leaders of the French army, from 1985 to 1988.
His story, necessarily subjective and likely to arouse controversy, is intended to be precise and detailed on the theatrical cruelty of the “gradaille”, these instructors responsible for toughening up the students, or on the conformism of the students – as evidenced by this evening where Ancel pleads with his comrades so as not to go to the pot of a particularly ruthless officer. One after the other, the future officers leave the dormitory to go to the party. There we meet Thierry Burkhard, the current Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, a graduate of this promotion, the last to consider war against the USSR, or General Jean-Louis Georgelin, wearing a transparent alias.
L’Express: Why tell the story of your promotion to Saint-Cyr almost forty years later?
Guillaume Ancel: Because this story is still relevant today. Saint-Cyr has been a watertight container for society since Napoleon. This school is only evolving very slowly. These memories of 1985, a young Saint-Cyrien could almost write them today. Above all, there is no literature on military training. Because of the “culture of silence” that we were taught to respect at school. I ask a question: is it normal that those who claim to protect society do not interact with society itself?
What makes you say that the memories you recount, the humiliations, the conformism, are still valid in 2024?
Saint-Cyr has evolved a little on certain points. By following the trial after the drowning death of Jallal Hami in 2012 during a boat trip, I unfortunately found behaviors that I knew well. Obsolete and unnecessary humiliation. I also found the heavy silence of the witnesses. We train people not to speak, including when it comes to justice. It’s not normal to die because you’re silent. We confuse silence on operations, absolutely necessary, but not specific to the military, and silence on everything else, on what is illegal. When an order is illegal, what do we do? We were never asked about this. When I spoke about Rwanda, after retiring, my classmates treated me like Dreyfus for ten years. Since Emmanuel Macron returned to the subject, things have been better. But it is indicative of the esprit de corps that is developing.
What is striking in your story is the feeling of the Saint-Cyrians of being part of an elite. Feeling which perhaps allows the acceptance of humiliations.
Yes, absolutely. A bit like at the ENA, Saint-Cyr develops a very strong feeling of the body. There are those who did it and those who didn’t. There are those who resisted the rout, their packs being overturned by unjust instructors, the chores, the punishments, and those who have not known this universe. This division of the world into two begins in Saint-Cyr. We kindly look down on the students of parallel training, the non-commissioned officers who passed the internal competition and the others, we call them the “dolos”, the “glouglous”, barnyard names. Even afterwards, in your career, it is difficult to have access to the best positions when you have not studied at Saint-Cyr. The limit of that is still the operations. There, we realize that, Saint-Cyr or not, we need everyone. The king is naked, we can no longer take refuge behind a status. It rebalances everything, we understand that our job only has meaning with others, and that does a lot of good. I loved my operations and even, before that, my internships during Saint-Cyr. Nothing to do with the heavy atmosphere of school.
Saint-Cyrians often praise the learning of resistance instilled by school.
Yes, Saint-Cyr gives us a form of resistance, of determination. I rarely gave up. This experience also built my character. And the last two years have been interesting. But we have the impression of resisting our own institution. I remember a huge waste. Instead of using our enthusiasm, the school puts us down. Saint-Cyr is a school of frustration. Now we should be able to distinguish between harshness and humiliations. The worst thing is that it’s not even collective training, it’s a competition school. Faced with gratuitous humiliation, everyone tends to develop individualism. It’s horrible to say, but I felt that there was a “concentrational” side to this experience.
You insist on the conformity of all students in relation to current practices. How to explain it?
There is too much endogamy in this environment. 80% of my classmates came from a military background. They feel like this is normal because their parents did the same. They don’t see the problem. I didn’t come from a military background at all, I felt that I was an anomaly for certain students. There were already close-knit groups from the “cornices”, the military preparatory classes.
Why such popularity of conservative ideas in Saint-Cyr? You say that the only ideas that some students boast about are hostility to abortion, that sort of thing.
Be careful, it’s more complicated than that! I was rather Rocardian, I said so. It was crazy for my comrades, they called me a “leftist”. But, after the political discussions, some students came to me to tell me that they agreed, but that they could not say it in public. This is the atmosphere of Saint-Cyr. The only ideas acceptable in public are hyperconservative. I don’t really know how to explain it other than by the weight of tradition. The army is a defensive environment, therefore conservative. I still remember a limit to that: political proselytism. It was poorly received. So, no one said that we had to vote National Front for example. Societal conservatism was more consensual. I was still called “Jew” several times. During operations, in Sarajevo, I also heard the word “Bosniul”, to evoke Bosniaks, Muslims.
Can you be homosexual in Saint-Cyr?
Obviously, not in my time, and not even today, in my opinion. In my class, there were officially zero homosexuals. In a class of 160 students, astonishing, isn’t it? Even forty years later, no one has come out. Too ashamed. Saint-Cyr is forty years behind the rest of society.
What is the weight of the aristocratic families that you mention in your book?
I call them the “Aristosaurs”, soldiers from father to son. They think that the army belongs to them, but, in fact, they are the ones who belong to the army. They experience the humiliations of being trampled, generation after generation, without asking questions. They play a role in the weight of societal hyperconservatism, they are conservative Catholics. Little linked to the extreme right, on the other hand. They retain some strongholds, in the army, the navy. I remember club A, it was a riding association in Saint-Cyr. The school lent him facilities, it was an institution. Nobody said it, but the “A” in the club stood for “aristos”. They were members and, to join them, you had to be co-opted. Another thing that shocked me: on Sundays, only those who went to mass were exempt from chores. For Jews or Protestants, there was nothing. I also remember a comrade who became a very great soldier, with a very high position, who was Protestant: he didn’t say it, we shouldn’t talk about it.
You were part of the last promotion prepared for war against the Soviet world. What happened to this antagonism in your promotion?
Nobody liked communism, the USSR was the enemy. But, strangely, now that an authoritarian power has been established in Russia, many have changed their position. In my class, I would say that 20% of my classmates are now pro-Russian. All this thrives on anti-Americanism, the idea of a great France at the head of an empire. Above all, it would be necessary to fight against the American empire, a competitor.
How did your former classmates react to the release of your book?
It depends on which ones. There are some who will always consider me a traitor. Others told me they would read it with interest, because they didn’t like Saint-Cyr. I discovered this at that time. Some senior officers have already written to me, sometimes very critical of the book, even though they are much younger. The culture of silence continues. My goal is to start a debate: is all this really necessary? In the United Kingdom, the tradition is to tell stories. Retired officers write books, they reveal themselves. Why do we have so much trouble with this in France?
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