In service of relevance: some claim that Akhenaten was the first rationalist, or even the first scientist. (IIRC from my half forgotten libart coursework)
I couldn't find any citations from a 5 min goog search on the latter claim, but here's an even more recent article (2018) that talks about Akhenaten anticipating the Athenian philosophers.
Guess Ecole Poly is good enough. Is ENS more like the Harvard/Oxford, and EP more like the MIT/Cambridge of France? This would be my layman reading of the situation, charitably not invoking politics.