Being a TV quiz champion brings a strange kind of fame, where strangers feel compelled to test you with random trivia. “Sometimes I’ll be walking down the street, a car slows down, the window rolls down, and someone yells, ‘Capital of Brunei?’ I answer, and they drive off—it’s quite amusing, really,” says Émilien, a 22-year-old history student. This summer, he became not only France’s most successful game show contestant ever but also the biggest winner in European history and the world record-holder for the most solo consecutive appearances on a TV quiz show.
Naturally, everyone wants to know how he did it.
Known only by his first name, Émilien stepped onto France’s popular quiz show, Les Douze Coups de Midi (The Twelve Strokes of Noon), in September 2023, wearing mismatched socks for luck, with just one goal: to make it to the next round. His first question was, “What did the American aerospace engineer Edward Murphy give his name to?” He answered, “Murphy’s law,” and explained how toast always seems to land butter-side down. The show’s format allows each day’s winner to return the next day, and Émilien kept winning—on topics ranging from 16th-century art to French nuclear plants, ice-skating pairs to Greek myths, and French rap to cocktail recipes. No one could beat him. He returned day after day for an incredible 647 consecutive appearances over nearly two years.
His winning streak ended in July after 21 months when, during a timed 60-second round, he stumbled on questions like, “Which Breton football club is moving up to Ligue 1 next season?” By then, he was a household name. He had boosted viewership to over 7 million and sparked a surge of interest in general knowledge among young people. His daily presence became a rare source of stability in a country facing political turmoil: during his time on the show, France went through four prime ministers.
We meet at his modest, sparsely furnished apartment on a quiet street in Toulouse. He had been studying for a history degree but had to pause due to the demanding filming schedule. Only a shiny new toaster on the kitchen counter, which looks suspiciously like a prize, hints at his fame. You’d never guess he’d received a giant cardboard check for over €2.5 million (£2.2 million)—a cumulative prize from almost two years that made him France’s first quiz show multimillionaire.
When he first appeared on the show at age 20, he had passed his driving test in a borrowed car just two weeks earlier. Within a week, he’d won a Ford Fiesta. By the end of his run, his knowledge of geography, history, and Eurovision winners had earned him 23 cars, along with countless vacuum cleaners, food hampers, waffle-makers, TVs, musical instruments, game consoles, and board games—plus a parachute jump and a trip to Lapland. “I had to rent a van to collect the prizes from the studio and put everything in storage,” he says. He also won 40kg of sweets, which he donated to a school. Many of the prizes he sold or gave away.
“Now, if I’m at the supermarket, I don’t worry about paying 50 cents more for a brand-name product, something I’d never have done before,” Émilien says. Otherwise, he continues to live frugally.
“It was never about the prizes,” he insists. “The main goal was always answering questions. That’s what I love. It’s really about a passion for quizzes.” Only that pure joy could have taken him this far, he adds.
Émilien grew up in a small village in the Vendée, in western France. His moHis mother was a health assistant and his stepfather a builder. As a child, he was always full of questions—so much so that a quiz show host once called him a “walking encyclopedia.”
In his living room, you won’t find stacks of reference books, just a memoir of the French singer Barbara that he’s halfway through reading. Instead, he relies on a detailed Google Doc filled with facts he has refined, tested, and updated through online quizzes. “I can sit and quiz for 16 to 17 hours a day without doing anything else,” he says. Just as important is his involvement in quiz club meet-ups in Toulouse, where he competes and writes questions in a room at the town hall. Most members are retirees, but the group is getting younger as trivia quizzes become more popular in France.
“I just love learning,” he explains. As a child, he devoured books about world records and fascinating facts. “I’d memorize them by heart—that’s how it all began.” When asked on a show to name the world’s busiest airport, he knew it was in Atlanta because he had read it in a world records book at age ten. He started watching The Twelve Strokes of Noon with his grandparents when he was seven and soon began taking notes. His grandmother, Yvonne, a retired childminder, encouraged him to keep auditioning for the show after his first attempt at 18, when he was considered too shy. Once he made it on, Yvonne came to Paris for some filming or cheered him on via video link. Now, she’s often recognized on the street too.
During the Covid pandemic, Émilien’s quizzing skills advanced significantly. In his final year of school, he spent much of the lockdown in his bedroom. “I started watching and rewatching TV quiz show reruns on a loop,” he recalls. “I loved it. I noticed that the same questions sometimes repeated, and I had memorized the answers. I thought if I kept watching, I’d know even more—it was a snowball effect. That’s when I really got hooked.”
He estimates he has watched and taken notes on so many quiz shows that he must have encountered hundreds of thousands of questions. He jots down one-word memory prompts in his Google Doc, which is now about 180 pages long. He can spend hours revising and testing his memory.
He focuses on noting topics that frequently appear. “If a question is ‘What Finnish classical composer…’ there’s really only one who comes up in the quizzing world: Jean Sibelius. I noted him down a few years ago, and he’s come up so often I don’t need to check my notes anymore.”
What about football questions? When I ask if he watches sports channels, he looks surprised. “I don’t learn team lineups, like for Paris Saint-Germain, which would interest a fan. I learn older information that a football fan might not know or care about,” such as World Cup history details and Ballon d’Or statistics.
But revision sheets can only take you so far—especially when TV quiz shows cover such a wide range, from medieval monarchs to winners of Drag Race France. Émilien believes there’s no hierarchy in trivia; Beethoven and Pokémon are equally important when the timer starts. To gain that broad knowledge, he relies on another simple but effective skill: “listening.”
If you pay close attention during conversations, he says, facts will emerge that you can jot down, making life—and conversation—quite enjoyable.The experience was very enriching for him, especially when he needed to update his knowledge of contemporary music. He found it much more effective to listen attentively in any conversation where someone might bring up a playlist. “It’s simple,” he explains. “In everyday chats, no matter the topic, the discussion might shift to something like, ‘Oh, you didn’t know that?’ and I’ll quickly write it down. If an interesting fact comes up, I’ll pull out my phone and say, ‘Hold on, I’m making a note of that.’ There are fascinating facts all around us.”
He attributes his success to paying close attention. “I realized that when you really focus on new things, even unfamiliar words you’ve glossed over while reading, it feels like making discoveries for the first time. Curiosity is the foundation of everything in life. I’ve always enjoyed learning, and I believe that curiosity is essential for anyone interested in quizzing.”
His ability to listen intently and concentrate sometimes gave him an almost supernatural presence on screen. For instance, when the host started a question with “On what sea…,” Émilien immediately responded, “The Sea of Tranquility.” It was correct—the question was about the Apollo 11 landings—and everyone on set was stunned. How did he do it? “Usually, when someone asks ‘on’ what sea instead of ‘in’ what sea, it refers to a lunar sea,” he says. “So, based on probability, I took a chance and answered in a split second.”
Filming the quiz show was intense, compressed into several weeks of shooting five to six episodes a day back-to-back. Contestants stayed in a hotel near the studio outside Paris. Between filming sessions, Émilien would have breaks often lasting over a month, during which he returned to Toulouse and studied at home for 16–17 hours daily.
“You could film 75 episodes in three weeks,” he notes. “I compare it to taking an exam—filming a quiz show is like doing two or three exams a day.” To manage the stress, which peaked just before going on air and lasted throughout each episode, he relied on sleep. “I need 10 to 11 hours a night,” he shares. Once, after a train delay, he arrived at his hotel at 2 a.m. the night before filming and only got five hours of sleep. His mind drifted for a moment during a question about Albertville in Savoie, causing him to miss a key detail. He guessed correctly but found it stressful.
He developed rituals and small superstitions to help him cope. “I always ate a fruit compote before each episode. If I didn’t have time, I’d feel uneasy.” He also entered the set through the same door and placed his water bottle in the same spot every time.
When asked if he ate special brain food, he looked puzzled. “Honestly, I’m the last person to give nutrition advice… I didn’t drink enough water, had a burger at night and a sandwich during the day, and that was it.”
Now, after the quiz show, what does he do with all these facts? Do they still bring him joy? Émilien insists they do. The key is applying his knowledge from digital notes to real life. “I knew nothing about botany when I started quizzing,” he recalls. “I built up a lot of theoretical knowledge—if you gave me a plant’s name, I could tell you its family. But while I could classify a carnation, I couldn’t recognize one in person. Now, I pay more attention to trees and flowers, and the other day, I spotted a strelitzia in a garden and was thrilled. It doesn’t take much to make me happy, but there you have it.”
His cultural insights also stem from his quizzing expertise.Perhaps inevitably, quiz enthusiasts often know about many films they haven’t actually seen. He decided to watch Louis Malle’s 1950s French masterpiece, “Lift to the Scaffold,” because it frequently appeared in quiz questions. He ended up loving it. Similarly, Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” became his favorite book after it kept coming up and other quizzers highly recommended it.
He’s currently taking a year off before possibly returning to his history studies. During this time, he’s participating in online general knowledge sessions with the influential French trivia and gaming streamer, Étoiles, and exploring whether he could pursue a career as a quiz streamer or question writer.
He still attends his regular quiz club meetings in Toulouse. When I ask how the others feel about his newfound fame, he looks surprised. “Nothing changes just because you’ve been on TV,” he says. Others have also appeared on TV quiz shows, and no one is the least bit impressed. “We’re all there to quiz, share questions, learn things, and have fun—that’s all there is to it.”
He remains curious and continues to add facts to his Google document. As we’re wrapping up, Frédéric, our photographer, mentions a photo project in the Tadrart Rouge mountain range in Algeria. “How do you spell that again?” Émilien asks as we leave.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of helpful and clear FAQs about the topic
General Beginner Questions
1 Who is Émilien and what is this story about
Émilien is a French gameshow champion who became Europes most successful by dedicating himself to intense marathon quiz training sessions famously practicing for up to 17 hours a day
2 What gameshows did he win
He is best known for his recordbreaking winning streak and total earnings on the French quiz show Questions pour un champion
3 What does competing for 17 hours a day actually mean
It refers to his rigorous training regimen where he would spend nearly all his waking hours studying practicing quiz questions and honing his reflexes and knowledge to prepare for the shows
4 Is it really possible to focus for 17 hours straight
While not literally nonstop it describes an extreme level of dedication It would involve long intense study blocks with short essential breaks for food hydration and rest to avoid burnout
Advanced Practical Questions
5 What are the main benefits of this kind of intense preparation
The primary benefit is achieving an unparalleled breadth and depth of general knowledge along with lightningfast recall and mental stamina which are critical for beating competitors on highpressure television shows
6 What are the common problems or downsides to this approach
The major downsides are a high risk of mental and physical burnout social isolation neglecting other life responsibilities and potential health issues from a sedentary lifestyle
7 Can anyone become a champion by studying this much
While extreme dedication is a huge factor natural aptitude for quick recall a strong baseline of general knowledge and the ability to perform well under pressure are also essential ingredients for success
8 What practical tips can I learn from his method for my own quiz preparation
Key takeaways include consistency over cramming using diverse sources for questions simulating real game pressure during practice taking strategic breaks and prioritizing sleep and health to maintain longterm performance
9 How did he manage his time to fit in 17 hours of practice
He reportedly treated quiz preparation like a fulltime job meticulously scheduling his day around study sessions and sacrificing most leisure activities and social time to achieve his goal
