A Review of the 2025 Concours d'Éloquence

Months of work have culminated to this: le concours d’éloquence. 

Le concours d’éloquence was a school-wide competition in which students from our school took initiative to speak in front of a crowd at the Raymond-Kabbaz theater, speaking for 3-5 minutes each. Among the thirteen students, six of them decided to speak in English and seven in French, thereby making the event equally open to both heavily French grandparents and out of school friends. 

This year, the event was hosted by the well-known Mr. Brack and our beloved Chloe Belga, a senior at Lycée. They were in charge of recruiting others to speak at the event and of choosing the themes which the students spoke about in their speeches and were aided by Mr. Petauton and the new administration at the Raymond-Kabbaz theater. Both Mr. Petauton and Chloe Belga gave opening speeches, resulting in a funny interaction in which the former kept  interrupting the latter, garnering lots of laughs from the audience, including us. 

As the lights dimmed and the speeches began, time flew by as the audience was enraptured in the monologues. At times, I could not find it in myself to tear my eyes from the stage like with Leila Lucas’ speech about “Who’s fault is it?”, with her powerful voice and her demanding gesticulations. At other times, I held my breath at the moving experiences like with Quincy’s speech in which she opened up about retaining happiness in difficult times. I felt extremely relieved to learn that her turtle ended up safe after the fires that tore down her home in the Palisades while she was at school. 

For those who don’t know, the students ended up having two different topics mentioned above. The first being “Who’s fault is it?” and the second being “It takes little to be happy.” Each student had to garner their own interpretations on the topics and speak on them. The goal of the contest wasn’t to answer the questions, but instead expand upon them in an eloquent manner.

Chloe Belga, the victor of the Best Speech award and the Popular Vote award sought to answer the French version of the question “Who’s fault is it?” and did so through speaking beautifully while saying nothing. She sprinkled witty jokes into her speech like “Jean Paul Dostoevsky” and generally entertained the audience whole-heartedly. Furthermore, she spoke quickly and eloquently, rendering the audience enthralled by her words. Honestly, no comments given can truly explain how magnificent she was on stage. 

Due to her witty jokes, Eva Brebenel took the award for funniest speech for obvious reasons. With her speech, she answered “It takes little to be happy.” With naked, unshowered philosophers living in barrels and dogs content with meals, walks, and rest, she crafted a heart-warming speech on the importance of love and relationships. In her words, material goods will never amount to the happiness that love brings.

On the other hand, Leila Lucas took the award for Best Performance. Her response to the question “Whose fault is it?” explored the nature of conflict and humanity. With her frank and provocative tone, she asked the audience to consider the value in dividing each other, whether that be in large-scale conflicts or with that which society imposes on us. Through flourishing gestures and flowing sentences, she demanded the audience’s attention and their understanding. 

Before the speeches, we interviewed Mr. Brack to try to get an inside scoop… He told us that “the students have been preparing for weeks and they’ve been getting some practice in on stage” and that he thought that it would be “a wonderful performance all around.” Although he didn’t share any juicy details, it was great to hear that everyone was prepared and ready for the speeches! Mr. Brack definitely seemed proud of everyone who participated. I think that was a sentiment everyone who saw the performances shared. 

Among all of the amazing speeches that Zofia heard, two speakers stood out the most: our announcers, Madame Clement and Mr. Brack! With gusto, Mr. Brack announced half of the participants. For the other half, Madame Clement did, creating personalized messages for each speaker and adding a twist.

Hearing great speeches from not one, but three presidents was particularly interesting. Madame Clement had accidentally announced both Julian Murchison and Bardia Ahanin as our Student Body President, later correcting Julian Murchison to the Vice President position. Yet, both speeches were of presidential quality. 

Zofia and I were at the edge of our seats, hanging on to every word of our third president, Anna Rocisewski. In Madame Clement’s words, she was not the president of the Lycée student body– rather, she’s the “future President of the United States”! It was certainly a line-up of speakers to remember.

After the concours d’éloquence, we also decided to interview some of the amazing students who went up! A lot of people gave some really detailed comments, and so here they were! 

Anna Rosciszewski: I had a really good time! I was really nervous–my life flashed before my eyes when I went onto the stage. But Eva’s speech made me cry! So, yeah… I was so nervous that it made me cry. But it was a very good experience, and I love Madame Clement. She’s my G.

Leo Behzad: I think that it’s an awesome opportunity for people to get over the fear of public speaking. I mean obviously there’s a little bit of pressure because you’re in a room with a lot of people that you know but the familiarity of it all is kind of encouraging. 

Julian Murchison: Yeah I just thought it was a great contest. It was organized great; just from the beginning it was very clear what we had to do and kind of the process of getting to this point. And Chloe and Mr. Brack did a great job of kind of getting everybody together and kind of banning the school around it. After Mr. Petauton's speech, it just kind of made everybody feel more relaxed. 

Bardia Ahanin: Since French isn’t my first language, I feel like this is a great opportunity to practice public speaking in French. Especially since, being in the BFI, there’s so many oral exams at the end of the year where you speak in French, so I feel like this is a great opportunity and overall was a really fun experience.

Eva Brebenel: As a participant, I literally thought that my heart was going to burst out of my chest before I gave my speech, but after I felt an immense relief and I was glad to be one of the first ones to go because that meant that then I could really appreciate the speeches. Everyone had great speeches and I laughed... [pause] did I shed tears? Maybe, I don't know but I certainly laughed. 

Gwyneth Muir-Atkinson: I felt super nervous at first, but after I spoke, I am so glad to say that I did it and that I had the patience with myself. 

Quincy Pitschka : Well, I thought it was a great experience, and I feel like I got much better at public speaking. Once I got up on stage, everything else faded out, especially if you like your speech, which I did. 

Chloé Belga: Alors, en seconde, après avoir mangé du sushi avec Madame Clement et Zofia Rosciszewski, j’ai vu le concours d'éloquence et surtout le discours de Faustin. Elle avait tout organisé et j'étais émerveillée, époustouflée. Je me suis dit que ça allait être moi, je vais faire le concours d'éloquence donc je l’ai organisé cette année et je suis très contente. Maintenant, je l’ai fait et Chloé en seconde est très contente parce que Chloé en terminale a fait ce que Chloé en seconde voulait faire. Et c’est super! 

Most of the comments given can be summed up to what Abigail Stewart and Emma Stievet said: “I was terrified” and “c'était une très bonne expérience.” All around, I know that everyone was proud of themselves and learned something from the experience. Hopefully, there’ll be more amazing concours in the future.