"In France, top positions in the administration are usually filled by people that are technically excellent and have gone through the system of grandes écoles (ENS, ENA, X, ...)"

These are schools that train bueurocrats, "technically excellent" yes, at politics and public service but not engineers. For example the new energy transition minister has a business degree and went to ENA.

I'm not one to call people elites but it's strange how you are using this to differentiate between France and German