France: The French broadcaster, France 2, opens submission window for Eurovision 2021

France: The French broadcaster, France 2, opens submission window for Eurovision 2021
Tuesday, 30 June 2020

  • The French broadcaster, France 2, has opened the submission window for Eurovision 2021, inviting interested acts and composers to send in their music proposals for the next Eurovision Song Contest. 

    Last week Alexandra Redde-Amiel, the entertainment director of France Télévisions and head of the French delegation to Eurovision, had revealed that Tom Leeb won't be returning in next year's contest and the country will be selecting a new hopeful for Eurovision 2021 through a national selection. 

    With intentions for next year cleared out, France 2 released  the rules and regulations  for the French national selection making an call on singers and composers to submit their music suggestions for next year's contest. The Deadline expires on September 30. one of the conditions that stands out is that all songs must be in French. 

    According to French Head of Delegation the country will be returning to a natiional selection format in order to determine the French hopeful for Eurovision 2021. As she stated : 

    “It will be a creation, produced in-house by France Télévisions Studios. We are working on the final concept. We already know that it will be an event evening, in a large concert hall, in the region."

    Therefore we expect to see a national final show in a big arena taking place in a regional city with the audience having a say on who will be the next ESC French representative. 

     

    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.