This year, many broadcasters are putting their national finals on hold for 2021 and going internal. However in France, fans are being treated to a brand new national final. France Télévisions has confirmed Eurovision France, c’est vous qui décidez! as part of its new season lineup.
The new selection show — whose name essentially translates to Eurovision France: You Decide! — was first mentioned in June by French Head of Delegation Alexandra Redde-Amiel.
France TV has now confirmed that Eurovision France will be part of the broadcaster’s new season of programming. A specific date for the national final has not yet been given, however, it will take place sometime in January 2021.
Also confirmed is that the show will involve 12 competing acts. Eurovision France will be hosted by Stéphane Bern, best known among Eurovision fans as France’s commentator since 2015.
The broadcaster has also confirmed that the show will be filmed in a provincial French city, rather than the Paris locations of previous national finals.
France’s return to a national final
Over the years, France has used both national finals and internal selection to choose its act for Eurovision. The most recent national final was Destination Eurovision, which ran from 2018 to 2019. However, for Eurovision 2020, France TV internally selected the singer Tom Leeb. But now France will return to a national final.
Back in June, Redde-Amiel explained the broadcaster’s decision to return to a national final instead of internally selecting Tom Leeb for 2021:
“You have to look at it in context. Tom Leeb had been internally selected. Covid arrived and Eurovision was cancelled. Eurovision is one of our strongest brands. We couldn’t let our audience go another year without it. We talked about it with Tom and we decided to rally the public around this event by creating Eurovision France, c’est vous qui décidez!.”
The HoD gave a few hints about the format of Eurovision France, c’est vous qui décidez! She confirmed that the national final would involve a public vote, but was less clear about whether the show would also have a jury vote. At the time she said, “The public will get the power of choice. Regarding the jury, everything is still open now.” However, it is possible that by now, the voting format has been decided.
Redde-Amiel also confirmed that the new national final would have a different format to Destination Eurovision. The previous national final format had involved two semi-finals and a grand final, with all the competing acts internally selected by the broadcaster after liaising with record labels. For Eurovision France, the broadcaster accepted public submissions.
What do you think? Are you excited about the new French national final? Which acts would you like to see compete? Tell us your thoughts below.
Hope the UK has a national final too
Lol this gives me Uk : You decide flashbacks. Hopefully their new selection format is better than that one
Awesome news!! Welcome back France national finals!!
I’m glad! The French selection in 2018 was incredible so I hope it will up to that level. I really see France possibly winning some time in the next few years.
Yay yay yay!!! I love French national finals <3
I really hope jury will take a part in competition,
and I hope the quality of the songs gonna be good, and what about Tom Leeb, why he wasn’t been invited to compete?
I wondering will we see familiar faces from DE?
it would be awesome )
Back in June Tom decided to not represent France again because of his busy planned calendar for 2021
Tom indeed had a busy year. In France, we could see him as an actor in the series “Infidèle”, and he will be on December 30 in the movie “C’est la vie!”
And as a singer he released his album, “Silver Lining”.
I hate Stephane Bern as a commentator, I prefer watching foreign broadcaster or without commentary at all. Even when he talks about history he’s wrong, for example, during the Italian performance he didn’t recognise the Arena and said that it was the colosseum of Roma. And he doesn’t talk enough about the songs and the artists.
They stopped Destination Eurovision because of the weak audiences but Bern will not help it. Except Amir and Alma, the jury was bad and boring. Globally, Eurovision is something that french people don’t understand
You have the right to dislike Stephane Bern, but there is no connection between him and the stopping of “Destination Eurovision”. Already, he did not appear in it, neither as a presenter (it was the singer Garou) nor as a commentator. “Destination Eurovision” was co-produced with “ITV productions”, which, in France, also produce “The Voice” … On TF1, the rival private channel of France 2. There was a time when France 2 decided to take full control of Eurovision by managing everything internally. This therefore meant not renewing the partnership with “ITV productions”. But as a result, they no longer… Read more »
I’m glad that they kept it in January! I love a busy Super Saturday, but being able to focus on one national final is even better.
Yay! I hope to see Maëlle, Yseult, Barbara Pravi or Janie among the artists 🙂
I am very sceptical of this new national final. The fact that the broadcaster has not already established what voting system they will use (whether that is 50/50 jury and televote or exclusively televote) is really a very big red flag. Another red flag is that they are letting anyone enter songs. When a broadcaster allows anyone to submit songs, 95% of them will be bad, with the rest most likely being very mediocre and therefore dead on arrival at Eurovision. When record labels are involved in the national final (as they are in Sweden), they guarantee a level of… Read more »
We’ ve not even heard a single song lol come on give it a chance
The jury was not clearly define back in JUNE, this not mean it’s not clear now, they just don’t communicate on it for now. Then I agree with you about the fact that a lot of the submitted songs by anyone particular who is involve with music generally doesn’t achieve to something really solid, but I find it’s a perfect way to involve people from anywhere in the country in it, putting efforts in it, and feeling listened and taking serious no matter what. Of course, they approached etablished record label, that’s not a secret, however as it was already… Read more »
Exactly, the last part of the article is the exact same since the end of june, they didn’t communicate since (except for Stephane Bern announced in july and 12 songs announced two days ago).
I don’t see where you got that there will be no label submitted songs? For Destination Eurovision, everyone could submit songs, but only a handful were selected through this process (such as Max Cinnamon in 2018), the rest was submitted but record labels. They are checking both random submissions and record labels.
Are the 12 songs coming from Swedish meatballs™ or are we going for something better for 2021?
Getting rid of the semis makes sense considering that France is an automatic qualifier and means the selection doesn’t need to be padded with subpar efforts to fill it.
Still, I hope that juries have a say (let’s be honest, France would’ve done much better in 2019 had they sent Seemone who won the jury vote and not Bilal)
This. I am worried that if one of the candidates is already famous, regardless of the song quality, they are more or less guaranteed to win, or at the very least perform very well.
It’s fine if you have a bunch of famous people perform, but if it’s just one it definitely skewers the result. Australia Decides has a lot of established artists with minor fandoms, but you can’t put a Delta Goodrem or Dami Im into that pool
This sounds like a solid plan, and a better “hail Mary” from the French broadcaster to the fans after annoying them all with the internal selection last year.
Oh you reposted this old video with Marianne James. She was such a personnality back when she commented for France between 2015 – 2017. A show girl! She was the reason I started to watch Eurovision at this time.
Unfortunately, the new management of France 2 didn’t like Marianne as much as you. I would never understand why Marianne was ousted (as Marianne herself says “I am a woman who has been fired by women!”) At least the M6 ??channel was able to get her back, and Marianne is a judge for “La France a un incroyable talent “now.
It’s not official, it’s just “Le Parisien” who said that yesterday. The news also talked about 12 songs during the show (so likely no more useless covers, yes).
Oh, you edited the article, nice.