FrancAutrices: Play the Card Deck Celebrating a Decade of Women’s Voices

What better way to celebrate a decade of championing women’s voices than by putting them into people’s hands?

To mark the 10th anniversaries of both les sans pagEs and Wiki Loves Women, a new card game, FrancAutrices, invites players to discover remarkable French-speaking women writers through play. Created through a collaboration between les sans pagEs, Wiki In Africa and volunteers from French Wikiquote, the game transforms years of collective work on Wikimedia projects into a fun and engaging experience for everyone.

At its heart, FrancAutrices celebrates women whose words deserve to be read, remembered and shared. Many of the quotations featured in the game were added to Wikiquote through Wiki Loves Women’s #SheSaid campaign, which encourages volunteers around the world to improve the visibility of women by creating and enriching Wikiquote entries in dozens of languages. Together with the work of les sans pagEs to reduce the gender gap in French across Wikimedia projects, the game represents another creative way to bring women’s stories to new audiences.

Learning through play

FrancAutrices is more than a card game—it’s an invitation to explore literature, history and free knowledge.

The deck contains 56 playing cards featuring illustrations of French-speaking women writers, together with quotations, biographical clues and fascinating facts about their lives and published works. Each card also links to additional information through a QR code, allowing players to continue their journey by exploring the writer’s biography on Wikipedia and a curated collection of quotations on French Wikiquote.

The game offers several ways to play.

Players can begin with a classic memory game, matching illustrated portraits with their corresponding biography cards. Once they’re familiar with the writers, they can move on to collaborative or competitive quiz games, where quotations, publications, nationalities, dates and bonus clues are revealed one by one until someone identifies the author. A Joker card adds extra opportunities for creative twists and house rules.

Whether played in a classroom, at a book club, around a family table or among friends, FrancAutrices encourages conversation while introducing players to women writers whose contributions have shaped French-language literature.

Find FrancAutrices at Wikimania 2026

If you’re attending Wikimania 2026, don’t miss the opportunity to add FrancAutrices to your collection. The game will be available to buy for €20 at the conference from les sans pagEs during the poster session–look for this poster. You can also purchase your copy from Florence Devouard, one of the collaborators behind the project and a long-standing champion of free knowledge, or Isla Haddow-Flood if you run into either of them during the conference, and pay via our Given Gain fundraising page by scanning the QR Code below.  

Credits
FrancAutrices was created through a collaboration between les sans pagEs, Wiki Loves Women (Wiki In Africa) and volunteers from French Wikiquote, with illustrations by Claire Gaudriot and graphic design of the cards by Teresa Shaw.