The École normale supérieure (French pronunciation: [ekɔl nɔʁmal sypeʁjœʁ]; also known as Normale sup’, Normale, and ENS) is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles (higher education establishments outside the mainstream framework of the public universities system). The ENS was initially conceived during the French Revolution, and it was intended to provide the Republic with a new body of teachers, trained in the critical spirit and secular values of the Enlightenment. It has since developed into an elite institution which has become a platform for many of France's brightest young people to pursue high-level careers in government and academia.

Its alumni have provided France with scores of philosophers, writers, scientists, statesmen and even churchmen. Among them are 12 Nobel Prize laureates, 10 Fields Medalists, 1 Gauss Prize laureate, and 2 recipients of the John Bates Clark Medal in Economics.

For a long time, women were taught at a separate ENS. The two were merged, after some heated debate, into a single entity, with its main campus at the historic site at the rue d'Ulm in Paris.

The ENS system is different from that of most higher education systems outside France, although it has been copied since Napoleonic times, for instance in Italy. Nevertheless, the university was ranked 33rd in the 2011 QS World University Rankings. THE-QS World University Rankings (from 2010 two separate rankings have been produced by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World University Rankings) ranked it the best higher-education institution in Continental Europe in 2006 and 2007.