The committed words of five young people from Béziers at the Groupe Dépêche Foundation’s eloquence competition

Quatre des cinq candidats du jour, issus de différents établissements du Biterrois.

Les membres du jury aux côtés du proviseur Karounna Souvannavong. Midi Libre – Mélissa Alcoléa

Cinq lycéens du Biterrois ont livré leurs plaidoiries, ce mardi 21 janvier au matin, au lycée Mermoz à Béziers, dans le cadre du concours régional d’éloquence organisé par la Fondation Groupe Dépêche en partenariat avec le Rectorat.

Excitement, stress, emotions, commitment and ambitions: this Tuesday, January 21 in the morning, in a packed room at the Mermoz vocational high school in Béziers, the eloquence competition organized by the Groupe Dépêche Foundation brought out some very beautiful voices.

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The principle: the volunteer classes have been working on writing a text for weeks, linked to a given theme, “humanity” this year. A student is then designated to convince the jury orally with this famous text in a time of less than 5 minutes. Content and form: everything counts. In the Béziers region, five students introduced themselves to the audience: Ethan Lauge from Mermoz high school, Louis Lamic-Bourleyre (Jean-Moulin high school in Pézenas), Julien Villanueva from Mermoz high school, Erin Encenat from La Trinité and Farah Jouari from Jean-Moulin high school in Béziers.

“There are no real secrets”

Lively and committed, the speeches brought out beautiful words and fine values: responsibility towards our planet, defense of the feminine cause by a class of boys but also the question of migrants “who are part of our humanity”, the tongues hardly slipped. Louis, the candidate from Piscénois, emphasized: “I've been working for a month, it's an interesting experience, I'll be able to use it later. To work on eloquence, we practice learning the text, there's no real secret. We practice in front of people until we're as comfortable as possible. In my case, the whole class participated in creating the text.”

In the room, the teachers were numerous and proud. Like Bérénice Laurent, an eco-management teacher at Mermoz: “Since September-October, we have been preparing students to write a text with the help of the French teacher. For a few weeks, we have been working on eloquence. We deliberated to choose the participants in the competition. The students will be able to benefit from it later in their professional life. They will be able to indicate it on their CV. This could be useful to them in the future, to obtain their Baccalaureate, to find a job or an internship, or to manage a customer relationship.”

“It is a joy to work with the Dépêche group and the rectorate”, said Karounna Souvannavong, the new principal of the Mermoz high school.“Three classes worked on this project and we presented two candidates”, he explains. “They will all be winners, if I may say so. Working on oral expression and writing will be beneficial to them, with a theme linked to each person's school curriculum. This is the start of a discussion with the young people” to continue this approach based on orality.

The regional final will take place on February 7 in Albi

This Thursday, January 23, the jury will meet at again to hear candidates from the Montpellier region. At the end of this day, he will have to determine the five candidates selected for the entire Montpellier Academy. The latter will compete on February 7th at the regional final of the 2025 eloquence competition, at the Cordeliers theater in Albi.

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