France in the Eurovision Song Contest
France has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 62 times since its debut at the first contest in 1956. France is one of only seven countries to be present at the first contest, and has been absent from only two contests in its history, missing the 1974 and 1982 contests. Along with Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, France is one of the "Big Five" who are automatically allowed to participate in the final because they are the five biggest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union. France has won the contest five times.
France first won the contest in 1958 with "Dors, mon amour" performed by André Claveau. Three more victories followed in the 1960s, 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, Catherine Ferry, Joëlle Ursull and Amina, who lost out to Sweden's Carola in a tie-break.
After reaching the top five in 24 contests in the 20th century, France has had less success in the 21st century, only making the top five twice, with Natasha St-Pier fourth in and Sandrine François fifth in. France finished last for the first time in, when Twin Twin received only two points. France have failed to reach the top 10 in 15 of the last 17 contests, the exceptions being Patricia Kaas, who was eighth in, and Amir, who was sixth in.
Organisation
Several French broadcasters have been used to present Eurovision in the country, formerly RTF, ORTF, TF1 and Antenne 2. Since 1993, France Télévisions has been responsible for France's participation in the contest, with the final being broadcast on France 2 and France 3, and the semi-final which France votes in broadcast on France 4 and later France Ô. The semi-final in 2004 was not broadcast. The viewers which were close enough to Monaco, were able to see the semi-final via TMC Monte-Carlo. Radio coverage has been provided, although not every year, by France Inter from 1971 to 1998 and since 2001, France Bleu. In 1982, RTL Radio transmitted the contest due to the country's absence that year.France has often changed the selection process used in order to find the country's entry for the contest, either a national final or internal selection has been held by the broadcaster at the time.
Contest history
France is one of the most successful countries in the Eurovision, winning the contest five times, coming second four times and coming third seven times. However, France has only hosted the Eurovision contest three times. France was ranked first in number of victories without interruptions from 1960 to 1993. Moreover, Amina was close to victory with the song "Le Dernier qui a parlé..." in 1991, when she finished in joint first place. Therefore, the 'countback' rule applied, but both countries had an equal number of twelve points, but the victory went to Sweden, when France had fewer 10-point scores. Today, with the new rules, France would have won the competition, because they received points from more countries than Sweden. One year before, France was also close to winning with Joëlle Ursull performing Serge Gainsbourg's song "White and Black Blues". The song finished in equal second place with Ireland's entry.However, in recent years, the French results have been somewhat disappointing. Since 1998, when the televoting was invented, France has almost always been in the bottom-10 countries in the final, coming 18th, 19th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th. France finished in last place, for the first time in their Eurovision history, in 2014 with only 2 points.
Yet, France have had some good results during the 21st century. In 2001, Canadian singer Natasha St-Pier came 4th for France with her song "Je n'ai que mon âme", being the favourite to win the contest by fans and odds. This good result was carried into the 2002 contest, when Sandrine François came 5th with "Il faut du temps" and received the Marcel Bezençon international press award for the best entry of that year. Finally, the positive experience with Sébastien Tellier in 2008 created considerable interest among the French show business for the contest, which resulted in the fact that Eurovision is seen now in the French media as a great advertising campaign and it has been decided that big names will represent France in the future. With these ambitions, the French superstar Patricia Kaas represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow, Russia. Kaas is one of the most successful French-speaking singers in the world and she has sold over 16 million records worldwide. She ended in 8th place. Kaas received the Marcel Bezençon artistic award, which was voted on by previous winners and presented to the best artist. In the 2016 Contest in Stockholm, Sweden, Amir with his song, "J'ai cherché", ended in 6th place and broke a 40-year record by scoring the most points in France's Eurovision history, by scoring 257 points in the final. France did not have the opportunity to compete in Eurovision 2020 in Rotterdam because the contest was cancelled due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Absences
Since their debut in 1956 France has only missed two contests, in 1974 and 1982. In 1974, after selecting a singer and song to represent them at the contest, France withdrew after the President of France Georges Pompidou died in the week of the contest. If they had participated in the contest, France would have been represented by Dani with the song "La vie à vingt-cinq ans".In November 1981, TF1 declined to enter the Eurovision Song Contest for 1982, with the head of entertainment, Pierre Bouteiller, saying, "The absence of talent and the mediocrity of the songs were where annoyance set in. Eurovision is a monument to inanity ." Antenne 2 took over the job due to public reaction of TF1's withdraw, hosting a national final to select their entry as well, from the 1983 contest.
France and the "Big Five"
Since 1999, four particular countries have automatically qualified for the Eurovision final, regardless of their positions on the scoreboard in previous Contests. They earned this special status by being the four biggest financial contributors to the EBU. These countries are the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Spain. Due to their untouchable status in the Contest, these countries became known as the "Big Four". Italy returned to the contest in 2011, thus becoming part of a "Big Five".Contestants
Hostings
| Year | Location | Venue | Presenters |
| Cannes | Palais des Festivals | Jacqueline Joubert | |
| Cannes | Palais des Festivals | Jacqueline Joubert | |
| Paris | Palais des Congrès | Denise Fabre and Léon Zitrone |
Awards
Marcel Bezençon Awards
| Year | Category | Song | Composer lyrics / music | Performer | Final | Points | Host city | |
| Press Award | "Il faut du temps" | Rick Allison, Patrick Bruel, Marie-Florence Gros | Sandrine François | 5 | 104 |  Tallinn | ||
| Artistic Award | Anse Lazio, Fred Blondin | Patricia Kaas | 8 | 107 |  Moscow | |||
| "Sognu" | Daniel Moyne, Quentin Bachelet, Jean-Pierre Marcellesi, Julie Miller | Amaury Vassili | 15 | 82 | ||||
| Press Award | "Mercy" | Émilie Satt, Jean-Karl Lucas | 13 | 173 |  Lisbon |
Winner by OGAE members
| Year | Song | Performer | Final | Points | Host city | |
| "J'ai cherché" | Amir | 6 | 257 |  Stockholm |