Enter the Aisne Democrat a visit to the Vervins plant in the Aisne region of France is like stepping back in time into the history of the printing industry. The workshop is home to a hundred-year-old lady, a Buhler Frères duplex rotary letterpress, an all-cast-iron machine 5.5 metres long, armed with an arm reminiscent of a steam locomotive. Not far away are the marble moulds, the letterpress row and a linotype from 1970. Are we in a museum? Not quite, as the Aisne Democrat is a newspaper printed every week in this workshop, the only newspaper still printed with lead in France and probably in Europe.
Founded by Pascal Ceccaldi in 1906, and managed by the association Les Amis du Démocrate for the past twenty years, this newspaper is visually and technically anachronistic. And it's totally deliberate! A four-page spread of departmental and local news, 88 cm long, printed on 48.8 g/m2 paper, using old-fashioned fonts full of charm, a newspaper that smells of ink, an ink that drools a little and stains the hands.
Texts for articles and advertisements are composed using the linotype, a task requiring skill and patience when you consider that it takes a day to turn a page. On marble, headlines are composed letter by letter, then placed in the right place... but upside down, as typography dictates. The typographer lays out the page, inserting the necessary fillets and blanks. Once finished, the form is clamped and its 50 kg are transported to the rotary press.
The Aisne Democrat is modest. In busy weeks, 2,800 copies are printed on Thursday for distribution on Friday.
In July 2022, the machine park, marble, breakers and building were listed as historic monuments. The heritage of Aisne Democrat is now protected.
The survival and safeguarding of this typographic know-how is also well underway. Stored away in the closet for ten years, a project finally seems to be on the verge of success: the creation of the Musée de l'imprimerie du Aisne Democrat . A museum where the workshop would be the centerpiece.
The commune of Vervins has recently lent its support to this project, offering to buy the building and carry out the investment project, while the association will seek subsidies from partners. The museum is due to open in 2025.
