The portrait
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At 22, the discreet student from Toulouse is the biggest winner of a TV game show in France and has won 2 million euros.
— “You are very enigmatic, Emilien.
– Ah good ? Why do you say that?
“That’s how it is, you’re difficult to understand.”
After a short hour of interview and a good half hour of shooting, it was our photographer pair who dared to express what had been itching for us since our arrival, two hours earlier, in a sanitized meeting room at Endemol headquarters in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis), the production company for Twelve Midday Coups. For more than a year, Emilien, in his twenties, has become the darling of TF1’s daily midday show. Behind his desk, the “maître de midi”, who puts his place in play every day, displays his general knowledge, impresses opponents and viewers and has a string of victories. Until today amassing nearly 2 million euros in cumulative winnings, money and gifts. A record in France.
At the beginning of December, we picked him up off the train, coming from Toulouse, on the eve of a filming session for the show. About one week per month, since July 2023, the history student travels to Paris to produce five to six broadcasts per day in the studios of Plaine-Saint-Denis. Long days that can stretch for more than ten hours. Sometimes, a loved one accompanies him: his mother, a caregiver, his father-in-law, a butcher, his girlfriend, a student like him, friends, or even his grandmother Yvonne, a fan of the show, who pushed to reapply when at 18, having just completed his baccalaureate, he
Celebrities
France
