So civilized

Seems there is a club, and neither you nor Rico are members. But it's French, so what do you expect?

"Of all the clubs in the world, the Club of 100 in France may be the most exclusive. Its ranks include leaders in business, politics and law, but it’s the admission policy that really makes the Club des Cent, as it is known here, truly remarkable: only when an existing member dies is space made for a new one. The École Polytechnique, which trains top engineers in France, is one of two schools that give graduates entree to the upper tiers of French business. Officially, the club, now 96 years old, is devoted strictly to gastronomy, and when the group gathers Thursdays for lunch at legendary Paris restaurants like Maxim’s, politics and business are not on the menu. Claude Bébéar, the chairman of AXA, the French insurance giant, and a club member for more than two decades, says that there is “an atmosphere of real friendship; we are very close.”
The same is true of the French business establishment. A close-knit brotherhood — it’s nearly all male — that shares school ties, board memberships, and rituals like hunting and wine-tasting, the French business elite is a surprisingly small coterie in a nation of more than 60 million people."
"At least half of France’s 40 largest companies are run by graduates of just two schools, the École Polytechnique, which trains the country’s top engineers, and ENA, the national school of administration. That’s especially remarkable given that the two schools together produce only about 600 graduates a year, compared with a graduating class of 1,700 at Harvard.
"Getting into Harvard, which accepted 9 percent of its applicants last year, is a breeze compared with getting into the École Polytechnique."
"The École Polytechnique was founded in 1794, during the French Revolution, to train the country’s military engineers, and it officially remains under the umbrella of the French ministry of defense. Not only is the school free, but students also receive a stipend from the government to cover their expenses."
“They behave like blood relations,” says Ghislaine Ottenheimer, a journalist and author who has written extensively about the French elite. “There is a sense of impunity because there is no sanction in the family.”