E.T. Enfant de Troupe
Bernard Richard
2005 - 79 min - Beta numérique - Couleur - France

For a period of eight years my teachers divide their time between education duty at the military high school and expeditionary missions in Indochina and later in Algeria. I survived thanks to the friendship of a few comrades. Other pupils, so-called "tradis" (military traditionalists) or "fana-milis" (military fanatics), excelled in organised bullying and were responsible for seriously disturbing or destroying certain of us.
Three interwoven in depth account by Charles Juliet, writer; Claude Maignant, teacher and victim of an extreme right-wing conspiracy; and the film director, tell of a singular form of education peculiar to France leading to a carrier in the armed forces. This is the story of a child's personal experience and the definite purpose of these land army "junior seminaries".
More than 60 000 children and adolescents, some as young as 6 to 10 years old, have received this strange and very discrete education provided to so-called "army children" (Enfants de troupe - E.T.) and to military high school pupils. These military establishments traditionally turned out commissioned and non commissioned officers destined to take part in the colonial wars and conquests. Have they today become luxury high schools aloof from their civilian counterparts and educating a caste system of children whose destiny is a military career?