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Bilal Hassani - Destination Eurovision 2019 France Semi One Winner
Bilal Hassini: Semi-final 1 winner (Photo: Glamour Paris)
FRANCE

France: Destination Eurovision 2019 – Semi-final 1 sees four acts qualify to the Final

The first of two semi finals was broadcast by French TV channel France Télévisions tonight, in a bid to find France's Eurovision 2019 entry

UPDATE 21 JANUARY 2019
Silvàn Areg has changed the title of his song, "Le petit Nicolas" to "Allez leur dire" due to copyright issues

Destination Eurovision 2019 was used again, similar to last year. The show allowed nine artists to perform a cover version of one of their favourite songs, before they sang their potential entry. Lautner were the only ones to choose a past Eurovision entry - "J'ai cherché" by Amir. Aysat chose a song by former Eurovision winners, Abba, but she sang "Dancing Queen", rather than their winning song "Waterloo". Bilal Hassani did not choose Mercy by Madame Monsieur from last year despite them being co-writers of his song.

Semi-final 1 – Result

  1. Bilal Hassani - "Roi" (115 points)
  2. Chimène Badi - "Là-haut" (66 points)
  3. Silvàn Areg - "Allez leur dire" (59 points)
  4. Aysat - "Comme une grande" (40 points)
  5. Lautner - "J'ai pas le temps" (35 points)
  6. Mazy - "Oulala" (33 points)
  7. Battista Acquaviva - "Passiò" (31 points)
  8. Florina - "In the Shadow" (21 points)
  9. Naestro - "Le brasier" (20 points)

Destination Eurovision 2019

This is the second year in a row that France has used the Destination Eurovision format to select their entry for Eurovision Song Contest. There will be three shows: Two semi-finals and one final, all hosted by Garou:

  • 12 January 2019: Semi-final 1
  • 19 January 2019: Semi-final 2
  • 26 January 2019: Final

9 acts compete in each of the semi-finals, where the best 4 from each proceed to the final.

French panel

There were three French panel members, who offered their critique, but did they did not vote for any of the songs:

  • Christophe Willem – French singer who was on last year's panel
  • André Manoukian – popular French jazz singer
  • Vitaa – most played French female singer from 2018

International jury

The international jury members awarded 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 points to their top six songs. The jury members came from:

  • United Kingdon
  • Israel
  • Portugal
  • Armenia
  • Serbia

The result was a 50/50 combination of the French televoting and the points from the international jury.

France in Eurovision Song Contest

France 2018: Madame Monsieur - "Mercy"

France is a grand old country in Eurovision. They have participated 61 times since the start of Eurovision in 1956.

The best results are five victories in 1977, 1969, 1962, 1960, 1958. The latest victory was in 1977 - 40 years ago! The worst result was in 2014, where France ended last in the Grand Final, and in the last 15 years, they only managed twice to be in top-10.

France is a member of "Big 5", so they don't have to go through the semi-final-qualifications, but are automatically qualified for the Grand Finals.

About the author: Michael Outerson

Michael has been a fan of Eurovision from the old school days when Vicky Leandros, Anne Marie David and Abba were winning the competition. Michael is from the United Kingdom and has passed the Eurovision bug onto his daughters. They have attended the last five Eurovision Song Contests.



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