Gérard Mestrallet, President of FACE and Chairman of ENGIE’s Board of Directors, has now taken over the duties of European Ambassador for Vocational Training at the request of Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labor Mobility.   This appointment was made during the first European Vocational Skills Week (EVSW), organized from Monday December 5 to Friday December 9 2016 in the European Union member states.   Discovering a career and even a passion Through this mission, Gérard Mestrallet undertakes to show that each French person has talent and that vocational training can supply the knowledge and skills needed to succeed on the labor market. At a time when about 75 million people in the European Union (nearly a third of the active population) have a low qualification level or no qualifications, the President of the FACE is therefore volunteering to show that vocational training can help to get the best out of each person, discover a career and even a passion. This Ambassador mission will also be the opportunity for Gérard Mestrallet to showcase the businesses which are innovating to develop work-based training. A renewed commitment to all forms of work-based training Gérard Mestrallet’s European mission is consistent with his commitments in favor of all forms of in-company vocational training:

• His report to the President of the French Republic, whose second Priority recommended to "create a work-based training culture as a path to excellence"
• His mission as French Apprenticeship Ambassador which he is conducting in conjunction with 50 regional ambassadors and the support of the ministers Myriam El Khomri and Clotilde Valter
• The Innovations for Apprenticeships Foundation (FIPA) which he created with Jean-Bernard Levy, CEO of EDF, to test business solutions in favor of all forms of work-based training and apprenticeship
• The French and European experimental programs which he wants to launch to promote the development of work-based training (EASY project, EU Talent, TEKNIK, facealemploi…)

  Following the European summit of heads of state on September 16, 2016 at Bratislava (Slovakia), the European Commission made new commitments in favor of vocational training. This dynamic shows once again that businesses and governmental authorities can join forces for young people, in order to demonstrate that each person has talents which vocational training can bring to light. "I am honored to have been appointed Vocational Training Ambassador by the European Commission. In France, we must promote all the forms of vocational training. It is the means of ensuring that each person reveals his or her talents. It is also proof that the enterprise is a training experience and that work can be a learning process. My aim is that long-term apprenticeship and mobility paths will develop, with a truly European work-based training approach", Gérard Mestrallet, President of FACE (Fondation Agir Contre l'Exclusion) and Chairman of ENGIE’s Board of Directors.