Paris – Many things seem unstable in France today. Will oscillating tariffs affect business? Is Perrier really so natural? And don’t even talk about the summer heat.
But in the last 21 months, fans of a popular French question program have lived a simple and unshakable certainty. Tune at noon any day, and there he was: a young man with a meek speech named Emilien, with round and thin glasses and an impressive knowledge of curiosities.
With the same regularity, Émilien defeated the other competitors. Repeatedly.
Although he preferred not to reveal his surname for privacy reasons, Émilien has become a kind of celebrity in France for his record sequence of victories in the “Les Douze Coups of Midi” program (“The Twelve Noon Blows”). Since September 25, 2023, he has competed 647 times and has accumulated 2.56 million euros, about $ 3 million in cash and awards.
But it all came to an end on Sunday, when a single defeat ended his reign.
Émilien, now 22, is as unbelieving as anyone else for coming as far.
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“It’s a crazy story,” he said by phone this week. “I never imagined it would last so much.”
Transmitted by the TF1 TV network, the program brings together four daily competitors that compete in a series of quizzes. The winner-Midi’s maitre, or noon master-defends the title the next day.
“My goal has always been the same: being there at the end of the program, from the first to the 647th day, doing my best and coming back the next day,” said Émilien.
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“I never had a specific goal of hitting this or that record,” he added.
Still, he got it. In an exciting statement that crowned him as “the greatest champion of the champions,” TF1 said his “legendary journey” broke the world record of solo participation in question programs and the European record of earnings in genre programs.
“Émilien exceeded all the boundaries, day after day, in front of millions of loyal viewers,” said the station.
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The encyclopedic mind and the discreet way of Émilien generated intense media coverage, a flood of memes, some critics who complained that he received easy questions (accusation denied by the producers) and even a compliment on the Instagram of the Minister of Culture of France, which highlighted his “calm, culture and modesty.”
In addition to cash awards, Émilien took home about 800,000 euros in awards, including 23 cars; trips to destinations such as Venice, Italy, and Canary Islands; a skydiving session; televisions; Smartphones; Video game consoles; Scooters; musical instruments; jewelry; makeup; bikes and appliances.
“It’s a lot,” he acknowledged.
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Émilien, who had a modest creation in the Vendée region in western France, said he had kept part of the awards, but also donated or sold many items. He said he did not see the need for 23 cars – or the 35 pounds of sweets he distributed to children in schools.
But Émilien’s success was not by chance. He always liked Quizzes, especially during the isolation of the pandemic, and grew up watching “Les Douze Coups of Midi” with his grandparents.
He was refused in the first attempt to participate in the program by turning 18. “I was very shy,” he said. But his grandmother encouraged him to try again two years later, and he did it.
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That’s when things got serious.
“I could do quizzes all day, 15, 16, 17 hours. I didn’t care,” said Émilien, adding that he wrote down and researched curiosities, especially on unknown topics.
Participating in the program, which is recorded in intensive sessions of one or several weeks and aired later, made him pause history studies at the University of Toulouse.
“I tried to follow the classes while participating in the program, but I couldn’t,” he said. “My exams always coincided with the recording periods.”
Now he is taking a break of a year to travel and enjoy the gains before resuming his studies, possibly to become a teacher. But life will no longer be the same. People already recognize him on the street.
“In the beginning, it was the usual viewers, especially the elderly,” he said. Then the young audience also accompanied him, some confessing that he aroused his interest in Quizzes.
Jean-Luc Reichmann, host of the program, attributes Emilien’s popularity to his humility-even when he interrupted him to correct a question about the wrong Indonesian capital.
“You have become a model for young people,” Reichmann said on social networks.
Émilien is not so sure.
“I’m just someone who likes to answer questions,” he said. “If it helps some people broaden their horizons, that’s all I could want.”
c.2025 The New York Times Company
