Institut d'études politiques de Lyon

The Institut d'Études politiques de Lyon (or Lyon Institute of Political Studies) also known as Sciences Po Lyon, is a grande école located in Lyon, France. It is one of ten Institutes of Political Studies in France, and was established in 1948 by Charles de Gaulle's provisional government following the model of the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. It is located at the Centre Berthelot within the buildings of a former military health college and operates as an autonomous institution within the University of Lyon. It is the first Institute of Political Studies to have joined the prestigious Conférence des Grandes écoles. Sciences Po Lyon has established partnerships with more than 160 universities abroad. Sciences Po Lyon was established following an executive decree by General de Gaulle in 1948. In common with the other instituts d'études politiques (IEP, English: Institutes of Political Studies) in France, it was modelled on the former École Libre des Sciences Politiques (ELSP) in Paris. It is considered as a French "Grande École" or elite school and remains an autonomous body within the University of Lyon. The ELSP was established as a private institution in 1872 by Emile Boutmy (along with Hippolyte Taine, Ernest Renan, Albert Sorel, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu and René Stourm), was dissolved in 1945 following a demand coming primarily from the French Communist Party, the strongest political force at that time, as well as other political figures not affiliated with it, such as Jean-Pierre Cot and André Philip. J.P. Cot and André Philip were both members of the Parliamentary Committee on the reform of the State. The ELSP, known then as Sciences Po, was indeed considered as an institution providing the sole Parisian bourgeoisie with a quasi-monopoly over access to the most prestigious positions in the French civil service (the Grands corps de l'Etat or high administrative bodies). More to the point, the ELSP was discredited for having trained many senior civil servants who quickly supported and were actually the backbone of the Vichy France from July 1940 to August 1944.