Très bien! French students are top of the class

University of Buckingham students have proved they’re top of the class in the first round of University Challenge in French.

Four students from one of the smallest universities in the country have won against the much larger University of East Anglia and are heading off into the semi-finals.

Head of the department of Modern Foreign Languages at The University of Buckingham, Karine Deslandes said: “We are delighted to be able to participate in the competition this year for the first time. It is a lot of work but the students really got behind the competition. They did amazingly well and we are hugely proud of them.”

The four students are: Sendil Thamothiram (Humanities and Social Sciences), Dylan Gill (Business) and Diksha Dahoo and Marissa Scarantino-Wilson, both Law students.

Organised by the Association Franco-Debates UK, the competition differs from the BBC version of University Challenge where students answer questions. Instead they participate in debates in the French language.

The event, sponsored by The French Embassy in London and Institut Français, has been running annually since 2012. The debates brings together students from all over the UK to compete in debates on laws proposed by Parliament.

Eliminatory sessions are taking place in February 2019, with the finale at the end of March. The two finalists will compete at the French Institute of the United Kingdom in London.

The University of Buckingham French team will participate in the semi-finals against The University of Edinburgh.

For more information, visit: https://francodebatsuk.wixsite.com/fduk.