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This paper studies the composition of ministerial private offices of the members of Jean-Marc Ayrault and Manuel Valls’ governments from a variety of perspectives. It compares the size of private offices but it looks for grasping all the social characteristics, bureaucratic resources and political trajectories and experiences of ministerial private offices’ members. This article confirms a trend: the relative decline of graduates from the National School of Public Administration (ENA). But it also shows that the traditional divisions between sovereign and sector-based ministers, as well as the hierarchical primacy of both the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic private offices are still prevailing. It also confirms that there are logics of internal differentiation within cabinets. Finally it stresses the importance of political networks in the make-up and influence of cabinets.