France: France Télévisions confirms Eurovision 2023 participation

France: France Télévisions confirms Eurovision 2023 participation
Friday, 01 July 2022

  • The French national broadcaster, France Télévisions has confirmed that the country will be taking part in Eurovision 2023.

    France Télévisions, has confirmed to ESCToday that they will be participating at the 67th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, adding France to the list of countries that will be present at Eurovision 2023. 

    France will be selecting their Eurovision 2023 representative through a national selection, with the broadcaster expected to shed more light on the process over the coming weeks. 

     

    France in Eurovision 

    France is  one of the seven countries that had its first participation back in 1956. Since then the country has won the contest 5 times. Last time was in 1977, with Marie Myriam and her song L’oiseau et l’enfant. The last two years, however,  seems to be an increasing interest for the contest .

    Destination Eurovision  was used for the first time as the country’s national selection format in 2018, including two recorded semi final shows and a live grand final. 2018 was the first time France held a nationa final since 2014. National final 2018 winners were the duo Madame Monsieur who represented France in Lisbon with their entry “Mercy” which finished 13th.

    In 2019 Bilal Hassani won the second edition of Destination Eurovision 2019 and defended the French colours in Tel Aviv with his entry Roi which came 16th in the Grand final.After that France Televisions went internal selecting Tom Leeb to represent the country in Rotterdam last May. Unfortunately his ESC 2020 journey never took place as the covid-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of this year's edition. 

    In 2021 Barbara Pravi won the national final with her song 'Voila' and  defended the French colors in Rotterdam performing in the Grand final on May 22, 2021. The French hopeful almost won the competition finishing 2nd behind Italy's Maneskin with 499 points i the overall score.

    Last year, Alvan & Ahez won the national final and represented the nation with their song 'Fulenn' which came 24th in the final with a overall score of 17 points. 

     

     

    News Source: ESCToday

    Image: EBU/ Corinne Cumming