École Supérieure d'Électricité, commonly known as Supélec, is a French Graduate School of Engineering delivering the equivalent of a Master's Degree as well as Ph.D opportunities. It is one of the most prestigious and selective Grandes Ecoles in France, and a reference in the field of electric energy and information sciences. With 460 graduates a year, Supélec ranks among the best Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the top American or European universities^{[citation needed]}.

Founded in 1894 and initially located in the 15th district of Paris, it was moved to Gif-sur-Yvette in 1975. Since then, two more campuses were established in Rennes in 1972 and Metz in 1985. It is a member of Top Industrial Managers for Europe (TIME) network. It is also a member of the CESAER Association and n+i Engineering Studies.

Supélec was founded in 1894 by Eleuthère Mascart, elected: Perpetual Member and Secretary of the Académie des Sciences and Foreign Member of the British Royal Society, Professor at the Collège de France, won the Bordin Prize in 1866 and the Grand prix de l'Académie des sciences in 1874.

Hervé Biausser (born 17 February 1951) is the Director of Ecole Centrale Paris (ECP), a post he has held since September 2003 when he replaced Daniel Gourisse. He was reappointed in August 2008 for a second five-year term.

In 1977 he joined IRSID, the research institute of the French steel industry group Usinor, becoming head of the department of Mechanical Metallurgy before he left in 1995. He became a professor of General Science and Industry at the Ecole Centrale Paris, then head of the Materials Development laboratory from 1998-2001. In July 2001 he became Director of Centrale Research SA and Director of the Centrale Graduate School.

Biausser is member of the board of the "Conference des Grandes Ecoles", where, after being secretary, he had been expected to become President, but he instead became a Vice-President in June 2009. He has been President of CESAER, a European association of engineering schools, for 2009 and 2010.

His father was Breton and his mother from Réunion. He likes yoga, opera and classical Greek authors, and is a former handball player.

Nicolas Sarkozy (pronounced [ni.kɔ.la saʁ.kɔ.zi] ( listen), born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa; 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as the 23rd President of the French Republic from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.

Before his presidency, he was leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Under Jacques Chirac's presidency he served as Minister of the Interior in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's (UMP) first two governments (from May 2002 to March 2004), then was appointed Minister of Finances in Raffarin's last government (March 2004 to May 2005) and again Minister of the Interior in Dominique de Villepin's government (2005–2007).

Sarkozy was also president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of France from 1983 to 2002. He was Minister of the Budget in the government of Édouard Balladur (RPR, predecessor of the UMP) during François Mitterrand's last term.

In foreign affairs, he promised a strengthening of the entente cordiale with the United Kingdom and closer cooperation with the United States. During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis (followed by the recession and the debt crisis caused by it) and the Arab Spring (especially in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria). He also married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.