In November, French media reported that broadcaster France 2 had ditched national final Destination Eurovision. Now it appears that the broadcaster may have reverted to internal selection. French media is reporting that France 2 has internally selected singer-songwriter Tom Leeb as France’s artist for Eurovision 2020.
The news was reported by French newspaper Le Parisen. The paper says that France 2 first called for song submissions, from both French songwriters and foreign songwriters. Once the right song was found, the broadcaster then looked for a singer to match.
That search led France 2 to upcoming singer-songwriter Tom Leeb. As the son of noted French comedian Michel Leeb, Tom also has a background in comedy and acting. But in recent years, his focus has moved to music.
However, as Le Parisen notes, France 2 would not give a comment on the possible selection of Tom Leeb for Eurovision 2020.
Who is Tom Leeb?
Tom Leeb is a singer-songwriter from Paris. He comes from a notable family of artists. His father is the well-known French comedian Michel Leeb and Tom’s sister Fanny is an established singer and star of The Voice 2013.
Tom is a man of many talents, having worked as is a singer, actor and also a comedian. He spent five years in New York, studying theatre, cinema, dance and singing.
He previously performed alongside his father in a theatrical adaption of Mrs Doubtfire. Tom has also made appearances on French television and has acted in films alongside established stars such as Jean Reno.
He also performs as a comedy duo with fellow funnyman Kevin Levy. As Kevin & Tom, the pair have a popular YouTube channel, including skits and songs.
But lately, Tom has been focusing on his music. He has played support gig for international stars such as Sting and Tom Jones. His music inspirations are other male singer-songwriters, such as Ben Howard, Matt Corby Bon Iver and John Mayer — all English-language performers.
In 2018 he debuted with a self-titled EP, and last year he released his album Recollection. Both recordings were English language and showcased Tom as a contemporary singer-songwriter. A version of Tom’s single “Are We Too Late” has clocked up over 25 million views on the YouTube audio clip.
If Tom has indeed been selected to represent France in Rotterdam, it seems likely that he will perform a song in the same ‘male singer-songwriter’ style.
France goes back to internal selection
After months of speculation, broadcaster France 2 appears to have gone back to internal selection for its Eurovision act. France’s new Head of Delegation Alexandra Redde-Amiel previously told Le Parisen that the broadcaster wanted to have “more control over the process with an in-house selection.”
France last used internal selection from 2015 to 2017, with good some results. That era included Amir being selected with his song “J’ai cherché”, which gave France a sixth-place finish in the Stockholm grand final. The following year, Alma earned a decent 12th place finish in Kyiv with “Reqiuem”.
What do you think? Should France internally select its act for Rotterdam? What sort of song would you like Tom to perform? Tell us your thoughts below!
I am readyyy but we have a lot of boys already, it will be sausage party ? :/
Not impressed at all … the voice isn’t very original and I don’t have high expectations about it (but I don’t see future 😉 ). if FranceTélévisions wants to get higher than the previous ones, they’ve made a wrong decision. So for me … Next !!!
He isn’t confirmed yet. For the song it won’t be in English (totally). I can understand that foreigners don’t know that but in France since he’ll be like our others artists « our ambassador » at ESC, he has to sing in our language. Also many will boycott the contest which is too Americanized already enough and France 2 doesn’t want bad ratings and polemics. For Indila, she had a one-hit with dernière danse and maybe tourner dans le vide and we moved on, especially since she has had a 4/5 years’ hiatus. We’ll see if France 2 confirmed or not… Read more »
Lol, I guess you’re not french. “Dernière Danse” is Platinum, “Tourner dans le vide” and “SOS” are Gold. These 3 + Love Story have more than 100 millions views, which made her the first french female artist to get every single from an era with more than 100M on youtube, her album was Diamond. So no, she isn’t a one-hit wonder.
Je ne partage pas votre perception de son succès sur le long terme j’entends et j’ai temporisé son succès de l’époque en raison de sa longue pause. Je n’ai juste pas la même manière de voir les choses que vous, tout simplement. Et si je suis bien français!
I’m not French so I’d appreciate some insight on why some people in France think the contest is too Americanized. I mean, your average US viewer seems to laugh at how tacky ESC performances are, so I don’t really see why some people would say that. I also don’t undersand why France 2 is in charge of Eurovision instead of the main channel France 1 . At least it’s not France 3 anymore…
Simply because France 1 doesn’t exist. In fact there’s TF1 (Télévision Française 1) but this is a private broadcaster. The public one here is France Télévisions (with France 2 actually the main channel) so it’s quite understandable that the public channel is in charge of the event in France.
TF1 used to have the right to broadcast the contest until 1982 because they thought was less and less important every year and is getting tacky, so France 2 (Antenne 2 at this time) recovered he right for the contest.
Checked out the previews of his 2019 album, and I get Jack Savoretti vibes from him. I like his voice. Hoping for a good song now too, if he’s the one for France. Bonne chance!
okay but this new oranie abbes wiwi editor looks like someone i’d stan
Eurofans be bitching and bitching, announcing bottom 5 as usual. You don’t have the song and in any case it’s not going to be written by him or taken from his repertoire so assuming the genre based on his previous work is pointless.
In live session it’s very interesting…. Not only does the guy sing super well, but the cameras will love him too. Not just the cameras, I think. 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bi7Ns_YVEE
Well, the comedian part is not funny at all.
Why no comment on whether this guy is straight or gay ? D’oh
Because not relevant.
In post about Jeangu it’s suddenly 100% relevant though
en France les fans sont decu moi je revais indilla maelle ou Maximilien phillippe bof il est mignon mais ses chansons sont tres ennuyeuses
Ouais ça serais trop bon d’avoir choisi Indilla, je l’aime beaucoup. Mais je crois qu’elle ne veut pas vraiment participer au festival, ou parfois c’est TVFrance qui ne veut pas des artistes déjà bien connus pour représenter la France
I’m sorry but his music is literally background noise, or track no. 5 on an album. People on here seem to care more about his “sexual” look than his musical talents!
Hopefully France don’t choose him or otherwise he gets slaughtered in the televote!
It makes me weird if it is Tom, because we are about the same age and that suddenly I “saw” him at the theater, etc, to grow at about the same time as me. But he is a very good singer, he will have no problem to speak english in an interview, and he is an handsome man (in short: they pick an “Amir effect”.) . There remains one question which is the most important: the song. If it is top we will have everything good (and it is interesting to be, otherwise the abandonment of Destination Eurovision will be… Read more »
sorry for off topic, but just few minutes ago official twitter account of Ukraine at Eurovision posted twit (then deleted it in few minutes) with list of participators , Tayanna and Onuka were on front pic, but the link was broken and they deleted the post
buT Is HE gAy? hE’S hoT!!
Anyway, seriously speaking, good luck to him
Hi people who voted this down. This is how you look like. Liked it?
He is super sexy but the song is bland and it could be any country really. With another internal selection I was hoping for something even better in the line of french pop that they tried to establish in 2016 and 2017.
You do know that that isn’t his eurovision song right? It was uploaded a year ago.
Top tip for Tom – come to Yorkshire – we don’t pronounce the “h’s” there.
Could be both a good pic and a good pick. Yes. I’m out. French can do bad play on word too 🙂 lol plus sérieusement je serais curieuse de voir ce que ca donne en francais. xoxo
Uhm hello gorgeous… but wait… English? Didn’t see that comming from France
I bet he’ll probably still sing his esc song in french is this is true.
Remember “Divine” and Sebastien Tellier…. Not a good place at the contest but a real success in charts.
Also sparked a huge debate at the French Assembly because the French entry was not in French, if I recall correctly?
More importantly, I never believed that the language could make or break an entry. A bad song will be bad in any language. Also, because France’s entry in English was a commercial success 10 years ago is no guarantee that their entry would do well now.
Well.. he is hot!!
I hope that they stick to French
Bonjour Tom!!! Ouf!
Finally some news. French eurofans aren’t very enthousiast about it but people outside the fandom in France on social networks are quite happy, surprisingly. Mainly because “unlike Bilal, he can sing”, lol. France 2 doesn’t want to confirm or make any comments, so we’ll likely get a confirmation tomorrow or next week at the later. About the song, I really don’t know… They found the song among hundreds of songs from french or foreigners authors and composers and then found the artist and it is a “perfect match”, according to Le Parisien (they didn’t hear the song, though). Let’s hope… Read more »
I agree. i’d be disapointed if he comes with a copy paste or something too close to Duncan. Anyway it’s France, Whatever they choose people will complain lol but he has a nice voice and a nice style I love it.
Lol same reaction to this.
I have bad feelings. France will going back… to the tail !
ESC is feeling: the good song with the good year
and France is completely out of sync this year, as decades…
I mean he is OK, certainly easy on the eye, he also has a great voice, but if you ditch a great national final like Destination Eurovision, ditch it for for a superstar, like Mika, ZAZ, Indila….not for this. I doubt he will bring Eurovision Glory, certainly not a year after Duncan.
Duncan, Netta, Salvador Sobral, Jamala, Conchita left the chat, lol. Were they popular before their participation ? I think that you can answer alone.
It’s not really that hard to top DE, since it failed twice to produce a top 10 hit for France. If the guy has a good song, let it be.
Amm I’m sure he’ll do better than Bilal, who had the worst vocals (after Sergat of course) last year. Loved MM though
Serhat had the right vocals for his song. Like Leonard Cohen was not Luciano Pavarotti, so what?
It’s funny you mention Indila. I’ve been saying she’d do it for yeears. And this year she’s coming back with some new material, and concerts in eastern europe if I’m not wrong. That’s why I was soo convinced they would announce it was finally her this year.
Indila already said a few years ago that she wasn’t interested at all in the contest.
…which actually means she is afraid of the contest (as many others).
Except that everyone has completely forgotten Indila in France. Here she is just considered a “one hit wonder”. And new singers appears every year from “The Voice” etc. For the teens of 2020, Indila is already prehistory.