Biography (Text)

Romain was born on October 12, 2004, in Leicester, UK, where his father Vincent was a lecturer in computer science and a researcher in mathematics at the university, and his mother Yoko was a postdoctoral researcher in computer science.

Yoko frequently took Romain to playgroups, bouncy castles, swimming pools, parks, markets, gyms, and gatherings with friends, among other activities. Romain was a cautious child by nature, beginning to walk around 13 months old. Since then, I have no recollection of being able to run faster than him.

Romain started attending nursery school at the Leicestershire Nursery School at the age of 3, and he began speaking with a perfect English accent.

When Romain was 4 and a half years old, Vincent and Yoko decided to relocate from the UK for their children’s education. Romain began attending school in Aix-les-Bains, then in La Batie-Montgascon, France. In 2009, the family moved to Kitakyushu, Japan, as Yoko wanted the children to receive early education in Japan to learn the Japanese language.

Romain completed 6 years of primary school in Kitakyushu, and then continued junior high school for a year and a half. In the fully Japanese environment, he achieved fluency in Japanese as his mother tongue.

At the same time, Romain frequently came to France to study at French schools to learn French. He attended local primary schools, then progressed to middle school and high school at Saint Marie Lyon La Verpilliere for the first trimester every year.

After 9 years of living in Japan, in 2018, the family decided to permanently move to France for the children’s education. Starting from the 3rd year of middle school (13 years old), Romain studied the entire year at Maryste.

Romain participated in numerous activities. His first activities were gymnastics and rugby in Aix-les-Bains. In Japan, he started playing football, then took up athletics, specializing in middle-distance running. According to his diary, his records were: 12.84 seconds for 100m, 4 minutes 53 seconds for 1500m, 59 seconds for 400m, and 2 minutes 16 seconds for 800m at the age of 13.

As Vincent enjoyed playing tennis, it was natural for Romain to play tennis. With a tennis court next to their house in Japan, he often played tennis with Vincent. Romain was a member of the school tennis team, and they won third place at the junior high school tournament in Kitakyushu!

Romain enjoyed learning languages, with English always being his favorite subject. Since middle school in France, he started learning German. Although it was initially challenging for Romain as he started later than others, he quickly caught up and, helped by private lessons, German became his favorite subject.

Despite being born in the UK and being of French and Japanese descent, Romain’s favorite football team was German. He always enjoyed playing football and attending the football school of Real Madrid, dreaming of becoming a professional football player. He was thrilled to start playing with the football team of Dolomieu.

Before the COVID pandemic, he also joined the athletics club in Bourgogne-Jallieu, where he enjoyed practicing with serious adult runners. Unfortunately, the Covid lockdowns reduced Romain’s sports activities, but he still went jogging during the curfew period.

In his final year of high school, Romain chose physics and mathematics as his specialties. He learned physics from his grandfather Pierre, and studying and discussing with “Papy” Pierre was a great pleasure for Romain. Romain learned a lot from his grandfather, particularly about the environment and energy, nuclear waste, and the Fukushima and Chernobyl accidents. Once, he tried to edit Wikipedia articles about the Fukushima accident. He was seriously concerned about the future energy problem. Romain bought physics textbook before the French baccalaureate exam finished and started doing all the exercises before the new school year. Yoko remembers that he proudly showed his notebook of physics exercises before leaving for the holiday in the south of France in mid-August.

Interested in politics and having lived in different countries, he enjoyed history and geography. While less passionate about French, he was very interested in philosophy and bought the textbook before the new school year started.

And of course, his most confident subject was mathematics. When Romain was about 11 years old, his father Vincent gave him a short algebra course. Since then, Vincent almost never helped Romain with mathematics, as it had always been his best subject. In his final year of high school, he had nothing to fear. He was well-prepared to kickstart the final year. His dream was to attend the grandes écoles, just like his father and grandfather did.

On Friday, September 10, 2021, we later learned that Romain and one of his friends had made plans for the weekend to study together and play sports. At lunch, Romain shared a banana with many friends and laughed a lot. Then, just after 5 p.m., he suddenly left us.