In 1977, Caroline Séguier, Matt Ribero, Abel Karnonski, Laure De Cigy and her brother Louis pass their oral entry exam to the ENA (Ecole Nationale d’Administration) and proudly find themselves studying in France’s most prestigious school. Caroline, beautiful, hard-working, annoying and seductive, is a staunch supporter of François Mitterrand and is determined to succeed. Matt, a supporter of Michel Rocard comes from a family of steel workers in Lorraine and is proud to be the first in his family to escape his social status. Abel, a righteous young idealistic altruist, is the only one of the group already working (as a lawyer) and to have a wife and child (a little girl), whereas Laure and Louis come from a long line of aristocrats used to serving the State. The president and the government of France have been part of the right-wing party for more than twenty years and the students of the “Voltaire promotion” swear to themselves that they’ll internally change a system they deem unfair and obsolete, starting with the man running their school… Determined to change the world, their arrival at the ENA marks the beginning of their political hopes and dreams. Abel wants to influence the way things go at the highest level of French administration. Caroline can’t stand the system’s unfair nature. Laure thinks that François Mitterand’s election will restore the social balance. But their years spent at the ENA, during which victories and disillusions follow each other, confront them to the spirit of competition, to their personal ambition, to the system’s injustice, and are just a rehearsal for what awaits them once they’ve graduated in 1980: the first round in a savage struggle for power. Hardened by their first experiences in the field, in embassies and police headquarters in Corsica and Africa, some learn how to use every weapon at their disposal. Others, constantly torn between their childhood dreams and their new responsibilities, struggle to embark on the path of compromise. For History does not wait. Called to the front lines a year later and propelled, thanks to François Mitterrand’s victory, into the arcane mysteries of the State, these young “énarques” will be asked to make choices on which their careers, and France’s future, will equally depend.