Léopold Berry is 22 years old and lives in Dijon. He is one of the 30 young men who are running for the Mister France election on Saturday January 25 in the Paris region. Since September 2024, he has been the representative of Mister France Burgundy and hopes to win the national scarf!
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At just 22 years old, Léopold Berry decided to change career path and entered the audiovisual sector to create content for businesses.
Léopold completed a work-study professional baccalaureate at the SNCF as a maintenance technician in electrical stations. Then he obtained a BTS on a work-study basis, and his professional career led him to work for Enedis with a degree in engineering sciences, in a sector which is the operation of electrical networks.
He branched into the audiovisual sector by becoming self-employed, a personal choice in relation to the world of work: “I prefer to work towards the objective. I am more in a performance perspective. And then the social aspect of the jobs I held was a little neglected. I missed being able to meet new people. The fact of working in the audiovisual industry allows you to meet many more people.”
And in terms of personal development in his new profession, Léopold finds what he is looking for: “On the development of knowledge there are new techniques all the time. My skills, I develop them for myself.”
Léopold Berry will represent Burgundy in the Mister France 2025 competition
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© Laurent Good photo
Léopold is lucid about the purpose of the competition: “It will give me experience, the social aspect is extremely important, we can meet new people, new points of view. These are things that can be useful to me in building my personality. We can finding behaviors that are inspiring, that happened to me in the Mister France competition.”
He also wishes to use this experience for his own personal development: “The competitive aspect with the other candidates, I have already done it through sport. The development of the person is, for my part, essential. The competition opens up new skills for us, whether in terms of repartee, posture in public on how to express yourself At first glance, these are skills that you might not think of, but in my case, it will help me in the development of my daily activity in relation to my clients. .”
Competing for Mister France will bring additional light, it will open up new possibilities. For whoever is elected, this will open up unique experiences.
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Regarding possible criticisms of the Miss or Mister competitions which are “outdated”, Léopold develops a solid argument. First of all, the Mister France competition appears to be recent: it was only created in 1993, while the Miss France competition dates from 1920. Léopold is therefore happy to participate in the Mister France competition, “If there are still candidates, that means that it is not a dying competition, like in other countries.”
But basically, appearing before a jury is far from being a purely physical and superficial approach: “it’s not a beauty contest, we are following a masculine ideal approach, the “kalos kaghatos” (in Greek, literally “beautiful and good”, a fusion of physical and intellectual excellence, inspired by ancient wisdom, Editor's note). When we talk about the ideal, we are not only talking about a purely physical aspect, the virtuous part is the whole part of the construction of the personality so it becomes more difficult to criticize. On the development of the person, it is the development of their skills, of the intellect, of the values, of the impact that we will have in society. Besides, Mister France asks us to support a cause.”
Léopold chose to support the cause of physical disability: “I can contribute to this cause, sportingly speaking, I'm not bad. I want to use my skills in this area to help these people who have a lot of constraints in their daily lives, and who have difficulty practicing sport. I would like to help these people in a sporting activity.”
Léopold's family will not be able to make the trip on January 25, but their support is there: “My candidacy for the title of Mister France, I had kept it to myself. I announced it when I had the title of Mister Burgundy. Before that, there had been departmental titles. For my part, all everyone was happy, everyone supported me.
For the record, according to the Committee, “Mister France is a male beauty contest which is aimed at young French men aged 18 to 30 and measuring at least 1.75 m. This competition opens straight, pour winner, to the annual title and the sash of the same name like its female counterpart Miss France.”
“He embodies the French masculine ideal around the values of good morality, altruism, benevolence, integrity, charisma, probity, elegance and open-mindedness.”.
If the spirit of competition between the different candidates remains present, Léopold Berry also found among the other candidates “inspiring behaviors”. He wants to introduce himself anyway “naturally” before the judges, “this is what is wanted!” he assures.
In any case, only one candidate will be selected at the end of the election: “If my person, my actions, my way of expressing myself is not suitable, then at that moment we must take the positive from it and see that it is a great experience, to meet people and experience a lot of things .”
For Léopold, whatever happens on Saturday January 25: “It’s an experience that we will have to make the most of.”
The Mister France 2025 election will be held on Saturday January 25, 2025 at 8 p.m. André Malraux Theater in Rueil-Malmaison (Hauts de Seine). Votes are made by SMS (dial 71415 €0.75 + price of an SMS) and on the Mister France website.
