Campus and city
l'X occupies a large, self-contained campus on the Saclay plateau in Palaiseau, roughly 20km south of central Paris and now reachable via the extended Line 18 metro and RER — but it is genuinely a plateau campus, not an urban one, so daily life is concentrated on site. The defining feature is the military and corps tradition: ingénieur students are officer cadets who wear the historic uniform (the bicorne and sword at ceremonies), march in the Bastille Day parade down the Champs-Élysées, and complete a formative civic/military period. Student life runs through the 'binets' (clubs and societies), a strong sports culture, and an intense esprit de corps that binds cohorts for life into the AX alumni network. The flip side is real: the environment is male-skewed, high-pressure, and has drawn sustained criticism for elitism and limited socio-economic diversity. For international Bachelor and MSc students the experience is somewhat different — more conventional campus life, English-medium teaching, and an on-ramp into the broader IP Paris and Saclay research community rather than the full cadet tradition.