France in the Eurovision Song Contest

Several French broadcasters have been used to present Eurovision in the country, formerly RTF (1956–64), ORTF (1965–74), TF1 (1975–81) and Antenne 2 (1983–92). Since 1993, France Télévisions has been responsible for France's participation in the contest, with the final being broadcast on France 2 (1993–98, 2015–present) and France 3 (1999–2014), and the semi-final which France votes in broadcast on France 4 (2005–10, 2016–present) and later France Ô (2011–15). The semi-final in 2004 was not broadcast. The viewers which were close enough to Monaco, were able to see the semi-final via TMC Monte-Carlo. Radio coverage has been provided, although not every year, by France Inter from 1971 to 1998 and since 2001, France Bleu (also 1976). In 1982, RTL Radio transmitted the contest due to the country's absence that year.

France has often changed the selection process used in order to find the country's entry for the contest, either a national final or internal selection (occasionally a combination of both formats) has been held by the broadcaster at the time.

France is one of the most successful countries in the Eurovision, winning the contest five times, coming second four times and coming third seven times. However, France has only hosted the Eurovision contest three times (1959,1961, 1978).[1] France was ranked first in number of victories (either alone or tied with other countries) without interruptions from 1960 to 1993. Moreover, Amina was close to victory with the song "Le Dernier qui a parlé..." in 1991, when she finished in joint first place (with the same number of points as Sweden). Therefore, the 'countback' rule applied, but both countries had an equal number of twelve points (four lots), but the victory went to Sweden, when France had fewer 10-point scores. Today, with the new rules, France would have won the competition, because they received points from more countries than Sweden. One year before, France was also close to winning with Joëlle Ursull performing Serge Gainsbourg's song "White and Black Blues". The song finished in equal second place with Ireland's entry.

However, in recent years, the French results have been somewhat disappointing. Since 1998, when the televoting was introduced, France has almost always been in the bottom-10 countries in the final, coming 18th (2003 and 2008), 19th (1999), 22nd (2006, 2007 and 2012), 23rd (2000, 2005 and 2013), 24th (1998) and 25th (2015). France finished in last place, for the first time in their Eurovision history, in 2014 with only 2 points.

Yet, France have had some good results during the 21st century. In 2001, Canadian singer Natasha St-Pier came 4th for France with her song "Je n'ai que mon âme", being the favourite to win the contest by fans and odds. This good result was carried into the 2002 contest, when Sandrine François came 5th with "Il faut du temps" and received the Marcel Bezençon international press award for the best entry of that year. Finally, the positive experience with Sébastien Tellier in 2008 created considerable interest among the French show business for the contest, which resulted in the fact that Eurovision is seen now in the French media as a great advertising campaign and it has been decided that big names will represent France in the future. With these ambitions, the French superstar Patricia Kaas represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow, Russia. Kaas is one of the most successful French-speaking singers in the world and she has sold over 16 million records worldwide.[2] She ended in 8th place. Kaas received the Marcel Bezençon artistic award, which was voted on by previous winners and presented to the best artist. In the 2016 Contest in Stockholm, Sweden, Amir with his song, "J'ai cherché", ended in 6th place and broke a 40-year record by scoring the most points in France's Eurovision history, by scoring 257 points in the final. France did not have the opportunity to compete in Eurovision 2020 in Rotterdam because the contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.[3]

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  André Claveau in Hilversum (1958)
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  Guy Mardel in Naples (1965)
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  Dan Ar Braz in Oslo (1996)
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  Jonatan Cerrada in Istanbul (2004)
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  Les Fatals Picards in Helsinki (2007)
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  Sébastien Tellier in Belgrade (2008)
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  Patricia Kaas in Moscow (2009)
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  Jessy Matador in Oslo (2010)
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  Amaury Vassili in Düsseldorf (2011)
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  Anggun in Baku (2012)
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  Amandine Bourgeois in Malmö (2013)
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  Twin Twin in Copenhagen (2014)
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  Lisa Angell in Vienna (2015)
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  Amir in Stockholm (2016)
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  Alma in Kyiv (2017)
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  Madame Monsieur in Lisbon (2018)
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  Bilal Hassani in Tel Aviv (2019)

• France in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest – Junior version of the Eurovision Song Contest.
• France in the Eurovision Young Dancers – A competition organised by the EBU for younger dancers aged between 16 and 21.
• France in the Eurovision Young Musicians – A competition organised by the EBU for musicians aged 18 years and younger.