On November 12, 2024, La Poste issues a block consisting of a stamp on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of crosswords in France.
It was on November 9, 1924 that the first crossword puzzle appeared in France. No question of cock-a-doodle-doo, alas, since it was to a Briton that we owe this brilliant invention and it was in the United States that it was published for the first time eleven years earlier, on December 21, 1913.
Quickly becoming very popular in the American press, this new game would establish itself at the beginning of 1924 with the release of a first collection that enjoyed dazzling success. Crosswords became a real social phenomenon. The American media then spoke of "crossword craze", the craze for crosswords. They were so successful in the United States that they soon crossed the Atlantic. The British press opened the ball when the Sunday Express published a first grid on November 2, 1924. The French press followed suit with a first grid published a week later in the Dimanche-Illustré, the Sunday supplement of the daily Excelsior. It was then presented on the front page of the newspaper under the name of "mysterious mosaic".
Readers were immediately passionate about this new mind game. Other newspapers were soon forced to offer a daily grid to their own readers.
During 1925, the game aroused such enthusiasm in France, as it had the previous year in the United States, that it became omnipresent in the lives of the French. It made the front page of magazines, was discussed in the press, competitions were organized, it was mentioned in humorous cartoons, postcards, songs, advertisements.
This success would not wane over the following decades and, a hundred years later, crosswords still have a large number of fans.
