Why is voilà so successful in spoken French conversation instead of voici? This paper intends to answer this question through a pragmatic and semantic study of voilà. We first survey how voilà and voici have been defined in French Grammar literature, focusing on the heterogeneity of explanations et grammatical classes. Then, it will be demonstrated that the deictic use of voilà has got a particular semantic value, especially in association with the anaphoric reference (tu es un imbécile, voilà mon avis vs ?tu es un imbécile, voici mon avis) and the act of utterance (voilà-t-il pas qu'il se met à pleuvoir!). In addition to the deictic uses, voilà is frequently used in spoken French, and not voici, to conclude (bon ben voilà c'est tout) or confirm an utterance or a sequence (donc si j'ai bien compris vous êtes la baby-sitter/voilà). It will be showed that the semantic feature of the deictic voilà give an explanation to its conversational use. Concluding or confirming an utterance with voilà indicates that the utterance is seen as the result of past events or facts, and more particularly, it involves a paradoxical association with the stereotype, as Anscombre's pragmatics theory intends it.