France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020

Prior to the 2020 Contest, France had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest sixty-two times since its debut as one of seven countries to take part in 1956. 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 Aminain 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. In 2019, France was represented by Bilal Hassani and the song "Roi". The country ended in sixteenth place with 105 points.

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. The French broadcaster had used both national finals and internal selection to choose the French entry in the past. Between 2015 and 2017, the broadcaster had opted to internally select the French entry. In 2018 and 2019, the broadcaster introduced the multi-artist competition format Destination Eurovision to select the French entry. In November 2019, France Télévisions announced that they would opt to select the French entry for the 2020 contest internally.

The Eurovision Song Contest 2020 was expected to take place at Rotterdam Ahoy in Rotterdam, Netherlands and would have consisted of two semi-finals on 12 and 14 May and the final on 16 May 2020.[5] 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 one of the two semi-finals. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the contest was cancelled.

• France in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020

• Official France 2 Eurovision site