Being a TV trivia quiz champion represents a funny type of celebrity, because strangers are eager to challenge you on various trivia. “Occasionally I’ll be strolling down the road, a car slows, the glass rolls down and a person screams: ‘Main city of Brunei?’ I answer and they speed away – it’s amusing truly,” says Émilien, a 22-year-old historical studies student who recently achieved the status of not only the top-performing French gameshow participant of all time, but the biggest gameshow winner in Europe’s history and the global title-holder for the highest number of solo consecutive appearances on a television quizshow.
Furthermore all people, of course, desires to learn how he accomplished this.
Émilien, referred to only by his first name, bounded on to France’s popular general knowledge television program, Les Douze Coups de Midi (The Noon Chimes) in the autumn of 2023 – sporting odd socks for good luck – with only one aim: to advance to the next round.
“What gave the U.S. aerospace engineer Edward Murphy lend his name to?” was his initial query. “The principle named after Murphy”, he replied, clarifying about bread always landing with the butter facing the floor. The program’s format ensures that each daily winner can come back the following day to participate once more. Émilien kept succeeding – on subjects including 16th-century art to France’s atomic energy plants, figure skating partnerships to Hellenic legends, Francophone rap to cocktail recipes. No additional contestants could beat him. He came back day after day for an astonishing 647 straight appearances, over almost two years.
His streak ended in July after 21 months – in a 60-second, timed round, he stumbled on questions including “Which from Brittany soccer club is going up into Ligue 1 next season?” But by then he was a household name. He had boosted audience numbers to more than seven million and sparked a surge of interest in trivia among the youth. His everyday appearances had become a rare source for consistency in a nation in political crisis: while he was on the show, the nation burned through multiple government leaders.
Everyday Existence of a Quiz Champion
I interviewed him at his humble, simply decorated apartment on an unassuming road on the suburbs of the city of Toulouse. He had been studying for a historical qualification here that he had to put on hold because of the demanding television program shooting schedule. Only a very shiny recent toaster on the cooking area, which appears conspicuously like a prize, suggests at his fame. You would never guess he has been presented a giant paper cheque for over 2.5 million euros – a rollover of nearly two years’ value of prizes that turned him the French first television quiz multi-million euro winner.
At the time he first participated on the show he was 20 and had passed his license exam in a borrowed car less than two seven-day periods before. In a seven days, he’d earned a Ford Fiesta. But by the moment he had completed his streak, his knowledge of places, history and Eurovision music competition winners had secured him a overall of 23 cars, not to mention scores of cleaning devices, food hampers, cooking appliances, televisions, musical instruments, video game systems and tabletop games (plus a skydiving experience and a journey to Lapland). “I had to hire a truck to collect the awards from the filming location and store it all in storage,” he states. He additionally received forty kilograms of candies, which he gave to a educational institution. A lot of the prizes, he has disposed of or donated.
“Now if I’m at the grocery store, I no longer need to be concerned about spending 50 centimes more for a name-brand item, which is something I’d not have done before,” Émilien says. Otherwise, he persists to live in his usual economical manner.
“It was never about the awards,” he says. “The principal goal was always answering queries. That is what I love. It’s really about a enthusiasm for quizzes.”
Solely the sheer joy of answering questions could have got him to this point, he says.
The Starting Point
Émilien grew up in a small hamlet in the Vendée in the west of France. His parent was a health assistant and his stepfather a construction worker. He was constantly posing questions as a child – on the quizshow, the presenter referred to him a “human reference book”.
Within his sitting area, there are no stacks of huge encyclopedias, just a memoir of the Francophone vocalist Barbara, which he’s currently partway through. In lieu, he now works by compiling an remarkable online document of information that he has mostly refined, tested and refreshed through online trivia tests. “I can sit and answer questions for 16–17 hours straight a day without performing anything else,” he claims. But equally as important is his participation in quiz club meet-ups in Toulouse, where he participates and creates queries in a room at the municipal building – mainly with retirees, but with membership becoming more youthful as trivia competitions increase in fame in France.
“I simply love learning,” he states. As a youngster he ploughed through many of volumes about global achievements and interesting facts. “I would learn them from memory, that’s how it all began.” Questioned on the program to name the world’s busiest air terminal, he knew it was in the city of Atlanta because he had seen it in a volume of world records when he was 10. He had started viewing The Twelve Strokes of Noon with his grandparents from the time of seven, and was soon jotting down information. It was his grandmother, Yvonne, a former childminder, who motivated him to continue trying out for the show – he had first attempted when he was 18 but was deemed too reserved. At the time he did join the program, Yvonne came up to the capital for some of the filming, or participated by remote connection encouraging him, and, she too, is currently frequently recognised in the public.
Lockdown Learning
This occurred during the Covid global health crisis that Émilien’s trivia advanced a stage. He was in his final grade of secondary education and spent a lot of the lockdowns in his bedroom. “I began watching and rewatching TV quizshow reruns on a continuous cycle,” he says. “I enjoyed it. I noticed that sometimes the same queries would recur again and I would memorised the response. I thought if I keep watching, then I will have more responses and it was a kind of snowball impact. I truly got into the compelling {
