For the second consecutive year, a UPF student has won the eloquence contest organized by the Nouméa City Hall on October 21. Matt Lippens-Cordero, the winner, and Anna Morati-Rinaldi, another law student, now want to encourage the organization of eloquence or debate competitions in Polynesia, and not only at the university. Because, in their view, the fenua “has extremely talented youths,” but they lack spaces to express themselves to practice the art of oratory and to gain confidence.
Matt Lippens-Cordero, a second-year undergraduate in law, and Anna Morati-Rinaldi, a second-year master’s student in Business Law, both winners of the University of Polynesia’s eloquence contest, participated at the end of October in the Nouméa eloquence contest, “La parole est à toi!” Matt Lippens-Cordero won with his theme on “reconquest,” in which he spoke about his return to Nouméa to charm the contest jury after an initial attempt that earned no prize. It marks the second consecutive year that a Polynesian student has earned first place in the Kanak contest, following Tauhani Lesca in 2025.
For these two eloquence competitions, held on the Outumaoro campus and in Nouméa, students were required to prepare their own text on a topic of their choosing and defend it before a jury. A performance lasting about five minutes, during which presence, originality of ideas, writing, and stage presence are assessed. “Each person was free to present whatever they wished, whether a current topic or something more personal but still connected to current debates. Some lean toward politics, others toward philosophy,” notes Matt Lippens-Cordero.
Anna Morati-Rinaldi, for her part, defended a piece on ego: “Having an ego can be a strength and a driver in life. I am someone who has a lot of ego. I enjoy winning, but I wanted to prove that it isn’t necessarily negative and that we can use it to accomplish good things.”
The two students prepared with their professors, but they were also coached by Coco the storyteller, Corinne Billard, who kept a close watch over them. “She teaches us to breathe properly, to own the stage. She even tracked our progress from afar once we were in New Caledonia, sending us little messages of encouragement.” For the text, it was up to them to find the most impactful words to defend their ideas, to achieve fluency, a catchy hook, and a strong ending.
At the university, eloquence contests are mainly of interest to law students who are training to present arguments before courts and must therefore master this oratory craft. Yet interest extends to other disciplines as well: Matt Lippens-Cordero and Anna Morati-Rinaldi say students in economics and management, literature, or languages are also drawn to this form of public speaking. These competitions help develop oral skills for everyday life, for exams and interviews, and also teach how to manage stress before speaking aloud.
Eloquence “isn’t given enough prominence” in Polynesia
For them, there are young people who are “very talented” and deserve more space to express themselves. The duo laments that “eloquence isn’t given enough prominence,” noting that today there are only two locally organized contests: one for eloquence and another for debates (the Hague debate competition held online, in which Matt Lippens-Cordero has already participated), and that these are open only to university students since they are organized by the UPF.
Because developing eloquence helps one learn to “speak well, convey a message. It is also about showing one’s personality by delivering texts that come from the heart,” explains Anna Morati-Rinaldi. For Matt Lippens-Cordero, eloquence can intimidate some who imagine that “you must know a lot of words, have a very wide vocabulary, and speak in a complicated way,” whereas the truth is the opposite: “you must be able to speak simply about abstract or complex concepts, using the right words and in a striking manner.” These eloquence contests evoke the ōrero competitions held in schools, during language festivals at the House of Culture, and, of course, during Heiva i Tahiti. Matt Lippens-Cordero sees the same stage dynamics and a comparable theatrical flavor.
The performances of Anna Morati-Rinaldi (5’17) and Matt Lippens-Cordero (1h21’06) at the “La parole est à toi” contest:
