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Des chiffres et des lettres (literally numbers and letters) is a French television programme. It was created by Armand Jammot and tests the numeracy skills and vocabulary of two contestants. It's the oldest TV programme still broadcast on French Television, and is notable in the UK for being the original version of Channel 4's Countdown. It was first known as Le mot le plus long (the longest word) because the numbers game had not yet been invented.
The game debuted in 1972. It is broadcast on France 3 and is currently presented by Laurent Romejko, Arielle Boulin-Prat and Bertrand Renard (the latter two check the existence of the words proposed by the contestants; Renard also provides solutions to the number problems that the contestants fail to solve). The show is also seen throughout the world on TV5.
The format is similar to the English version, it currently has 14 rounds which are identical to the rounds used in the 14 round format that was used for Grand finals up until Series 46 when the 15 round format was brought in, apart from the 14 rounds are not in the same order. Other notable differences are that when one player has a longer word than the other player, only the player with the longer word declares, and there are no conundrums but rather duels which involve some sort of mental calculation or anagramming feat, but is not simply a 9-letter anagram. Other differences include that players get 9 points for a 9-letter word and not 18, and players get nine points for a correct numbers game, and six points for any other solution, no matter how far away the solution is from the target. Finally if a player offers an invalid nine-letter word (or any word that's longer than the opponent's word) the opponent gets nine points no matter what the length of his own best word was.
