Les Douze Coups de midi (previously called Les 12 Coups de midi, ) is a French game show hosted by Jean-Luc Reichmann and broadcast everyday on TF1 since June 28th 2010.
History Les Douze Coups de midi is an adaptation from the Argentine show El Legado on Telefe (the first version was named Crésus, broadcast in 2005 and 2006 on TF1 and hosted by Vincent Lagaf'). This show consists of an individual quiz which can lead to winning numerous prizes and a jackpot..
Broadcasting This game was broadcast on TF1 to collect the midday audience, as a response to the success of Tout le monde veut prendre sa place, a game show broadcast at the same time on France 2..
Since October 2010, Jean-Luc Reichmann has hosted the game with a virtual character, a fairy called Eulalie (voice by Véronique Le Nir).. Later, this fairy became a simple voiceover, but kept her name and her voice actor before her replacement by Zette which is voiced by Isabelle Benhadj.
From May 12, 2020 to October 9, 2021, to respect safety measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic in France, the show was broadcast without audience, and a new character, Docteur Maboul, made his appearance. His role is to clean up the candidates' desks.
Description The winner of the show, now Maître de midi (), puts his title on the table to try and win more prizes until his elimination.
At the end of the show, each correct answer reveals one tile on a rectangle of 13x10 tiles hiding hints for the discovery of a celebrity. Since January 27, 2023, only a "coup de maître" () with five correct answers lets the Master of Midday make a guess, to try to win the jackpot.
The show has known some evolutions since its creation. Since January 2018, the last round "L'étoile mystérieuse" () was made harder by replacing the celebrity's picture by a number of hints, leading to guess said celebrity. The last four tiles hide this celebrity.
Visual identity From September 2016 to September 2019, for the 100th mysterious star, the show changed its logo and artistic direction.
In September 2019, the show changed its studio, its logo and its artistic direction.
The logo changes color for certain vacation or holiday periods. Fir example, the logo becomes red during Christmas and New Year (golden in winter 2023), and golden and yellow (pink in 2022) during the summer. Starting in 2023, the logo turns green for the fall and changes to orange for Halloween.
Audiences On June 28, 2010, the launch of the game was welcomed by 2.9 million people with a peak at 4.6 million at the end. After a decrease in September 2010, around 2.3 million people were watching from home. The numbers went up again in October, and stabilized at more than 3 million. Ever since then, the game regularly gains audience, with a peak at 4.5 million on February 1, 2011. It is the leader at this time of the day. On December 26, 2016, no less than 4.73 million people watched the show, with a peak of 6.5 million in the end. In April 2019, following the Quesada scandal, audience decreased before coming back to normal shortly thereafter. On July 6, 2025, 4.98 million people watched the show and 7.1 million at the elimination of Émilien.
Records Émilien holds the record for victories in the history of television games in the world.
He also holds the show's winnings record and is the biggest winner in the history of French game shows in terms of winnings, ahead of Bruno Hourcade with €1,026,107 and a Who Wants to be a Millionaire contestant named Marie-Hélène who won €1,000,000 in the show on August 27, 2004.
Ranking The next list ranked the twenty best contestants as number of successive appearances. Legend Contestants ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Contestant still in the game
# Contestant Participations Global money Debut appearance Final appearanceMaster strokesStars 1 Émilien 647 September 25, 2023 July 6, 2025 193 23 2 Bruno (Fifou Dingo) 252 January 20, 2021 October 5, 2021 92 9 3 Éric199 November 21, 2019 June 19, 2020 62 7 4 Christian 193 July 4, 2016 January 14, 2017 64 7 5 Paul153 April 29, 2019 October 10, 2019 59 6 6 Stéphane 153 August 20, 2022 January 20, 2023 44 5 7 Céline 125 March 14, 2023 July 24, 2023 37 4 8 Véronique 100 April 5, 2018 July 21, 2018 39 9 Léo 98 August 31, 2020 December 6, 2020 31 10 Timothée 83 March 24, 2017 June 14, 2017 29 3 11 Benoît 82 January 18, 2019 April 9, 2019 28 12 Bruno (Lille) 80 August 8, 2013 October 26, 2013 34 13 Xavier 76 January 5, 2013 March 21, 2013 32 14 Alexandre 75 November 12, 2010 January 25, 2011 37 5 15 Sylvain 75 April 26, 2015 July 15, 2015 30 4 16 Lucia 73 April 13, 2012 June 24, 2012 5 17 Laurent 72 January 13, 2022 March 25, 2022 20 3 18 Cyrille 71 February 12, 2011 April 23, 2011 28 4 19 Sébastien 68 October 16, 2012 December 23, 2012 20 3 20 Vincent 62 February 8, 2014 April 10, 2014 22
References
Official Les Douze Coups de Midi webpage on TF1 website