France: National selection show “Eurovision France, c’est vous qui decidez” to take place in January
The national selection show “Eurovision France, c’est vous qui decidez”, through which France will select its Eurovision 2021 act, will take place in January, as France Television has confirmed.
Leaving behind the “Déstination Eurovision” format , this year the French broadcaster selected internally Tom Leeb to represent the country in the contest that was eventually cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic. This year France Télévisions is swtiching back to a national selection in order to select its hopeful for the next Eurovision Song Contest. Namely the national selection show ” Eurovision France, c’est vous qui decidez” (Eurovision France; It’s you who decides) will determine next year’s representative.
France Television has announced that the national selection show will hit our screens in January while the presentation will be a work of tv commentator and presenter , Stephane Bern. The 2021 national selection will see a total of 12 participants battle for the ticket to Rotterdam and it will bring back the public vote in determining the nation’s representative.
Stéphane Bern is a well-known face in France: writer and radio speaker, he commented on all editions of Eurovision from 2015 onwards, including Eurovision 2010 and the special event Europe Shine A Light. In addition he also commented on the last two editions of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, which saw the return of France after fourteen years of absence.
France in Eurovision
France has been part of the Eurovision Family since its first participation back in 1956. Since then the country scored five victories. 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 mechanism in 2018, consisted of two recorded semi final shows and a live grand final. Destination Eurovision was the first national fina to take place since 2014. National final 2018 winners were the duo Madame Monsieur who represented France in Lisbon with their entry “Mercy” and finished 13th.
In 2019 Bilal Hassani won the second edition of Destination Eurovision 2019 and flew the flag in Tel Aviv with his entry Roi which came 16th in the Grand final.
In 2020 France Televisions decided to go internal by selecting Tom Leeb to represent the country in Rotterdam last May. Unfortunately his ESC 2020 journey never reached its destination as the covid-19 outbreak caused the cancellation of this year’s edition.
