Lucie de Perthuis / Photo credit: MAURIZIO ORLANDO / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 18:58 p.m., June 04, 2023

5,000 people gathered this Sunday afternoon on the Champs-Élysées in Paris to participate in the largest dictation ever organized. Hundreds of desks as far as the eye can see have been erected on the most beautiful avenue in the world. On the copy, the results have not always lived up to expectations.

Everyone sits at their desk, pen in hand. We are not in a classroom but on the Champs-Élysées this Sunday afternoon where the largest dictation in the world was organized. Alone, with family or friends, the little ones, as well as the oldest, all participants are ready to take up the challenge.

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"I feel a little stressed," says the child. "It brings back more bad memories. But here, it's different, it's in a beautiful environment, "says a young woman. "It's been a long time since I did dictation. I'll see if my spelling isn't too rusty," one man added.

"I made 17 mistakes"

The bell rings, like at school, and dictation can begin. The participants are working on a text by Alphonse Daudet that has caused much torment to some of them. At the time of correction, it is sometimes the hecatomb. "I made 17 mistakes," says a girl. "We are on the 122nd fault there, it's not going at all," laughs a young woman. More success, in this gentleman: "Six small mistakes, it's okay I expected worse. I remember Bernard Pivot's dictations with words that no one knew," he laughs.

"I was better in my memories," says one woman. And for this young girl, it is difficult to hide a certain disappointment. "I love spelling so I would have preferred to have had a little better." Anyway, the operation is a success for this giant dictation that aims to promote the French language. Today, in France, 2.5 million people are illiterate.