Paris' most famous street was transformed into an open-air mass "dictation" spellathon on Sunday, pitting thousands of France’s brainiest bookworms against one another.

Revealing a very French love affair with words, over 50,000 people applied to participate in the event at the Champs-Elysees — a world first — in which hopefuls attempted to faithfully and without error transcribe a text read to them. Over 5,000 applicants aged 10 to 90 were chosen to participate in three sessions led by novelist Rachid Santaki.

Top student Antoine, who is in his final year of primary school, attended it with his father. But despite being a star pupil, he had struggled to fill his page.

“It was impossible,” he said. “The dictation was for adults.”

His father Adrien Blind, 42, was equally relieved when the session wrapped, saying he “was in a state of stress and worry”.

But 65-year-old retiree Touria Zerhouni was more upbeat. “I only made two mistakes,” she said. “I expected it to be much harder.”