The term pantouflage refers to a practice by which high-level French civil servants, usually former students of the École Polytechnique or the École nationale d'administration, obtain work in private enterprise. In use, the term can be applied to all civil servants, not just those who attain notoriety. In American contexts, this concept is known by economists as a revolving door. The practice is often viewed negatively by the public.
The term pantouflage refers to a practice by which high-level French civil servants, usually former students of the École Polytechnique or the École nationale d'administration, obtain work in private enterprise. In use, the term can be applied to all civil servants, not just those who attain notoriety. In American contexts, this concept is known by economists as a revolving door. The practice is often viewed negatively by the public.
== Origin == Early on, in slang usage at the École Polytechnique, the word "pantoufle" (French for slipper) referred to the act of avoiding public service after study. Those who "trained in the pantoufle," the "pantouflards," carried the title of "former student of the École Polytechnique," and gave up the right to the "Diploma of the École Polytechnique". Later, the term also came to refer to the repayment of education costs by individuals who had failed to serve ten years in civil service after obtaining their degree (this is comparable to the practice of "dedit-formation" in France, in which employers might be eligible for reimbursement of expenses by employees who resign prematurely).
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).