Being a TV general-knowledge quiz titleholder is a funny kind of celebrity, because strangers are eager to challenge you on various facts. “Sometimes I’ll be strolling down the street, a car slows, the glass goes down and someone shouts: ‘Main city of Brunei?’ I answer and they speed away – it’s entertaining really,” says Émilien, a 22-year-old historical studies scholar who this summer became not only the top-performing French quiz program contestant of all time, but the biggest gameshow earner in Europe’s history and the world record-holder for the most solo consecutive appearances on a television game show.
And all people, of course, wants to know how he did it.
Émilien, referred to only by his first name, stepped on to France’s popular trivia television program, Les Douze Coups de Midi (The Noon Chimes) in the autumn of 2023 – wearing mismatched footwear for fortune – with only a single goal: to advance to the following stage.
“Which did the U.S. aerospace scientist Edward Murphy give his name to?” was his initial query. “The principle named after Murphy”, he answered, explaining about toast inevitably falling with the butter facing the floor. The show’s structure means that each daily victor can return the next day to compete again. Émilien kept succeeding – on subjects ranging from 16th-century art to French nuclear power stations, figure skating partnerships to Hellenic myths, Francophone rap to mixed drink formulas. No other competitors could defeat him. He came back each day for an astonishing 647 consecutive appearances, over nearly two years.
His run concluded in the summer after nearly two years – in a 60-second, speed round, he stumbled on questions including “Which from Brittany football club is being promoted into the top division the following year?” But by then he was a household name. He had increased audience ratings to more than 7 million and sparked a rush of enthusiasm in trivia among the youth. His everyday appearances had turned into a unique source for stability in a nation in governmental turmoil: while he was on the program, France went through multiple prime ministers.
Everyday Existence of a Title Holder
I interviewed him at his modest, sparsely furnished flat on an unassuming street on the outskirts of the city of Toulouse. He had been working for a historical qualification in this location that he had to put on hold because of the punishing quizshow filming schedule. Only a quite glossy recent bread warmer on the kitchen counter, which looks conspicuously like a award, suggests at his renown. One would not imagine he has been handed a massive cardboard cheque for over €2.5m – a accumulation of almost two years’ worth of awards that made him the French initial television quiz multimillionaire.
At the time he initially appeared on the show he was twenty and had passed his license exam in a borrowed vehicle less than two weeks prior. Within a week, he’d earned a compact car. But by the time he had finished his run, his understanding of places, past events and the Eurovision Song Contest song contest winners had won him a overall of 23 automobiles, in addition to scores of cleaning devices, food hampers, waffle-makers, televisions, musical instruments, games consoles and tabletop games (plus a parachute jump and a journey to Lapland). “I had to hire a van to collect the awards from the studio and put it everything in a storage unit,” he says. He additionally received 40kg of sweets, which he donated to a school. A lot of the awards, he has sold or given away.
“Now if I’m at the supermarket, I no longer need to be concerned about paying 50 centimes more for a name-brand item, which is something I’d never have considered previously,” Émilien explains. In other respects, he continues to reside in his usual frugal way.
“It was never about the awards,” he says. “The principal objective was always answering queries. That is what I love. It’s really about a passion for quizzes.”
Solely the sheer pleasure of quizzing could have got him to this point, he affirms.
Early Beginnings
Émilien grew up in a small village in the Vendée in the western part of France. His parent was a health assistant and his stepfather a construction worker. He was constantly asking questions as a youngster – on the quizshow, the host called him a “walking encyclopedia”.
In his sitting area, there are not any stacks of huge encyclopedias, just a memoir of the French vocalist Barbara, which he’s presently partway through. In lieu, he now operates by compiling an remarkable Google Doc of facts that he has largely honed, verified and refreshed through online general knowledge quizzes. “I am able to remain and answer questions for 16–17 hours a 24-hour period without performing anything else,” he says. But just as essential is his participation in quiz club gatherings in Toulouse, where he competes and creates queries in a room at the town hall – largely with retirees, but with membership becoming more youthful as trivia competitions gain fame in France.
“I just love acquiring knowledge,” he states. As a youngster he worked through scores of volumes about world records and interesting details. “I would learn them by heart, that’s how it all started.” Asked on the show to identify the world’s most active airport, he knew it was in Atlanta because he had read it in a book of global feats when he was ten. He had begun viewing The Twelve Strokes of Noon with his elders from the time of seven, and was soon jotting down information. It was his grandparent, Yvonne, a former childminder, who encouraged him to keep auditioning for the show – he had initially tried when he was 18 but was considered too shy. When he finally join the show, Yvonne traveled to the capital for a few of the recording, or appeared by remote connection supporting him, and, she too, is currently regularly identified in the street.
The Pandemic Boost
It was during the Covid pandemic that Émilien’s trivia advanced a level. He was in his last grade of secondary education and spent a lot of the lockdowns in his bedroom. “I started viewing and re-viewing television quizshow repeats on a continuous cycle,” he says. “I loved it. I observed that sometimes the identical questions would come round again and I’d learned the response. I thought if I keep watching, then I will have additional answers and it was a type of cumulative effect. I truly got into the addictive {
