École nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer

Explorer Auguste Pavie (third from left, standing) and Pierre Lefèvre-Pontalis in 1893 with Cambodian interpreters trained at the École coloniale.

The École nationale de la France d'outre-mer (ENFOM; French for "National School of Overseas France") was a French grande école, providing training for future colonial administrators. It was situated in Paris, avenue de l'Observatoire, 2.

Created under the name École coloniale ("Colonial School") in 1889, it succeeded the École cambodgienne ("Cambodian School") - established in 1885 - and took the ENFOM name in 1934 (it was still referred to as La Colo in colloquial terms). On 23 June 1956, it was subject to the French Fourth Republic's "Africanization" of colonial administration policy: the number of its African and Malagasy students equaled that of Metropolitan France ones.

In 1959, it became the Institut des hautes études d'Outre-Mer (IHEOM), and offered training to administrators of African countries that were members of the French Community (including Madagascar); in 1966, IHEOM was replaced by the Institut international d’administration publique that formed future leaders from Third World countries and which ultimately fused into the École nationale d'administration in 2002.

Staff

Directors

• Etienne Aymonier (linguist, explorer and archeologist) : 1889-1926
• Georges Hardy : 1926-1933
• Robert Delavignette : 1934-1946
• Paul Mus, author
• François Luchaire : 1959-1964
• Jean Baillou : 1965-
• Henri Roson
• Jean-Pierre Puissochet
• Michel Franc
• Didier Maus

Deans

• Léopold Sédar Senghor, first president of Senegal and poet of the Negritude movement

Alumni

• Abdou Diouf, second President of Senegal
• Enrique Peñalosa, Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia
• Félix Éboué, colonial administrator
• Pierre Messmer, French Prime Minister and colonial administrator
• Adamou Ndam Njoya, Cameroonian politician
• Phetsarath Rattanavongsa, Prime Minister of Laos
• Paul Biya, president of Cameroon