For three days, from January 13 to 15, 600 young professionals from 64 different trades competed in Lyon at the 46th WorldSkills national final. These under 23 year olds from all over France took part in a series of trade events in conditions close to the reality of the business world to win the gold medal, the key to their place in the international finals of these trade olympics, which will take place in October in Shanghai, China. Seven young printing press operators and eight DTP graphic designers represented the French graphic arts sector.
Offset proofs were run on Heidelberg 1-color and 4-color presses at Argouges high school in Grenoble and at Lyon Eurexpo on the Sinapse simulator. For the digital part, the equipment was provided by Konica Minolta for the 5th consecutive edition. The young printers worked on two digital color presses and seven multifunction printing systems.
WorldSkills Printing Category Podium
The medal of or of the printing profession goes to Louis Leichtnam (who represented the Grand Est region). Louis Leichtnam is an offset driver at the City and Eurometropolis of Strasbourg printing office.
Alexandre Bourguignon (Île-de-France) wins the silver . He is an offset driver's assistant at the Cloître printing company in Finistère.
Claudia Benais (Nouvelle-Aquitaine), wins the medal of bronze . Claudia Benais is currently a student in the first year of a BTS (technical diploma) in print and multimedia product design.
"It is a fabulous human experience to see this determination, this passion from the competitors, says Claude Thomann, one of Konica Minolta's technical advisors for the event. It requires a high level of commitment and dedication on their part to achieve excellence in the trade and reach the podium. It's a great reflection of the printing profession."
WorldSkills Graphic Arts and Prepress Category Podium
Emmanuel Young (representative of the South Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region), who is currently doing a Bac Pro AMACV is the or of the category.
The medal of silver is won by Charlotte Hirgorrome (Nouvelle-Aquitaine), graduate of a BTS in communication design of space and volume.
The bronze is to Camille Mauguin (Centre-Val de Loire).
And on the second day of competition, Friday, January 14, the participants were able to measure the importance of this competition: Jean Castex, Prime Minister of the French Republic, Elisabeth Borne, Minister of Labor and Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister of Education, came to greet the 600 competitors. This was enough to put a lot of extra pressure on them.
