France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017

Prior to the 2017 Contest, France had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest fifty-nine times since its debut as one of seven countries to take part in 1956.[1] France first won the contest in 1958 with "Dors, mon amour" performed by André Claveau. In the 1960s, they won three times, with "Tom Pillibi" performed by Jacqueline Boyer in 1960, "Un premier amour" performed by Isabelle Aubret in 1962 and "Un jour, un enfant" performed by Frida Boccara, who won in 1969 in a four-way tie with the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. France's fifth victory came in 1977, when Marie Myriam won with the song "L'oiseau et l'enfant". France have also finished second four times, with Paule Desjardins in 1957, Catherine Ferry in 1976, Joëlle Ursull in 1990 and Amina in 1991, who lost out to Sweden's Carola in a tie-break. Since 2000, France has managed to place within the top ten four times, with Natasha St-Pier finishing fourth in 2001, Sandrine François finishing fifth in 2002, Patricia Kaas finishing eighth in 2009 and Amir finishing sixth in 2016.

The French national broadcaster, France Télévisions, broadcasts the event within France and delegates the selection of the nation's entry to the television channel France 2.[2] The French broadcaster had used both national finals and internal selection to choose the French entry in the past. The 2014 French entry was selected via a national final that featured three competing acts. Since 2015, the broadcaster has opted to internally select the French entry, a procedure that was continued in order to select the 2017 entry.[3]

The Eurovision Song Contest 2017 took place at the International Exhibition Centre in Kyiv, Ukraine and consisted of two semi-finals on 9 and 11 May and the final on 13 May 2017.[9] According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) were required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. As a member of the "Big 5", France automatically qualified to compete in the final. In addition to their participation in the final, France was also required to broadcast and vote in the second semi-final.

For the very first time, the final of the Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast in all cinemas in the CGR Cinemas across the country. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot.[10] On 25 January 2016, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Once all the competing songs for the 2017 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. France was set to perform last in position 26, following the entry from Bulgaria.

Points awarded by France

Semi-final 2 Score Televote Jury 12 points  Romania  Israel 10 points  Israel  Belarus 8 points  Bulgaria  Macedonia 7 points  Hungary  Bulgaria 6 points  Estonia  Malta 5 points  Serbia  Netherlands 4 points   Switzerland  Austria 3 points  Belarus  Norway 2 points  Croatia  Denmark 1 point  Ireland  Serbia

Final Score Televote Jury 12 points  Portugal  Portugal 10 points  Romania  Italy 8 points  Belgium  Sweden 7 points  Moldova  Norway 6 points  Armenia  Israel 5 points  Italy  Bulgaria 4 points  Bulgaria  Netherlands 3 points  Israel  United Kingdom 2 points  Hungary  Australia 1 point  Poland  Austria

Jury members

The following five members comprised the French jury:[11]

• Antoine Gouiffes-Yan – Chairperson – marketing director
• Sonia Boraso (Enea) – singer
• Julien Gonçalves – music journalist
• Steven Bellery – music expert
• Hédia Charni – culture and music journalist, television host

Split voting results from France (Semi-final 2)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		A. Gouiffes-Yan	Enea	J. Gonçalves	S. Bellery	H. Charni	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Serbia	4	9	13	11	6	10	1	6	5
02	Austria	8	8	5	3	10	7	4	13
03	Macedonia	1	5	8	15	1	3	8	11
04	Malta	2	11	2	14	3	5	6	18
05	Romania	16	10	4	7	14	11		1	12
06	Netherlands	13	4	6	1	8	6	5	12
07	Hungary	14	14	11	9	13	14		4	7
08	Denmark	9	12	3	2	11	9	2	15
09	Ireland	10	16	17	13	12	16		10	1
10	San Marino	17	18	18	18	18	18		17
11	Croatia	18	13	15	6	15	15		9	2
12	Norway	6	1	12	8	9	8	3	14
13	Switzerland	12	6	7	12	16	12		7	4
14	Belarus	3	3	14	4	4	2	10	8	3
15	Bulgaria	11	7	1	5	7	4	7	3	8
16	Lithuania	15	17	16	16	17	17		16
17	Estonia	7	15	10	17	5	13		5	6
18	Israel	5	2	9	10	2	1	12	2	10

Split voting results from France (final)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		A. Gouiffes-Yan	Enea	J. Gonçalves	S. Bellery	H. Charni	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Israel	2	13	5	7	15	5	6	8	3
02	Poland	22	10	21	20	19	21		10	1
03	Belarus	14	22	25	10	14	19		16
04	Austria	13	14	13	9	5	10	1	24
05	Armenia	9	6	22	19	6	13		5	6
06	Netherlands	11	11	2	1	20	7	4	14
07	Moldova	20	24	20	12	10	20		4	7
08	Hungary	12	20	10	16	12	14		9	2
09	Italy	6	5	3	3	7	2	10	6	5
10	Denmark	21	19	6	4	11	12		25
11	Portugal	1	7	1	5	2	1	12	1	12
12	Azerbaijan	25	21	19	6	22	22		17
13	Croatia	18	23	23	17	21	24		12
14	Australia	17	9	12	8	8	9	2	20
15	Greece	15	18	16	22	23	23		15
16	Spain	19	17	15	14	13	18		19
17	Norway	4	3	14	15	3	4	7	23
18	United Kingdom	8	2	4	23	16	8	3	22
19	Cyprus	16	15	17	18	4	15		13
20	Romania	23	16	9	13	17	17		2	10
21	Germany	3	4	18	24	24	16		21
22	Ukraine	24	25	24	25	25	25		18
23	Belgium	10	8	8	21	9	11		3	8
24	Sweden	5	12	11	2	1	3	8	11
25	Bulgaria	7	1	7	11	18	6	5	7	4
26	France

• Official France 2 Eurovision site