France 2, the French national broadcaster, has revealed three more artists that will compete in Destination Eurovision.
IGIT will perform “Lisboa-Jérusalem”. He first came to public attention during the third season of “The Voice: La plus belle voix” in 2014, in which he reached the semi-final. His coach on the show was Garou, the presenter of Destination Eurovision.
Emmy Liyana is also a former contestant of The Voice. She participated in the sixth and most recent season of the show in 2017. She was eliminated during the first live show. She will perform “OK ou KO”. Part of the team behind the song is Zazie, Emmy’s coach on The Voice.
Madame Monsieur are an electro-pop duo made up of Emilie Satt and Jean-Karl Lucas. Their song for Destination Eurovision is called “Mercy” and was inspired by the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. They are the first group revealed to be taking part in Destination Eurovision.
These artists now will join Malo, June the Girl and Louka in the Destination Eurovision semi-finals. The selection will start on January 13th and will consist of three shows. The show will be used to decide who will represent France at the Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon, Portugal in 2018. Artist announcements will continue up until the first semi-final.
The dates of the shows are as follows:
- Semi-Final One – January 13
- Semi-Final Two – January 20
- Final – January 27
From the 1,500 songs received, 18 were chosen for the live shows. Destination Eurovision will consist of two semi-finals with nine songs each and a grand final. All three shows will be presented by Garou. In each semi-final, a jury made up of three Francophone and three international members will select four songs to advance to the final. The three Francophone jury members are Christophe Willem, Isabelle Boulay, and Amir, who represented France in 2016. The three international jury members are Heads of Delegations from various countries: Christer Björkman (Sweden), Nicola Caligiore (Italy) and Olga Salamakha (Belarus).
In the final, the result will be decided by a jury of 10 international members (50%) and public voting (50%). Joining the Heads of Delegations from Sweden, Italy and Belarus will be the Heads of Delegation from; Armenia, Bulgaria, Finland, Iceland, Israel, Russia, and Switzerland.
Some well-established names in the French music industry, including Zazie, Maître Gims, Grand Corps Malade, Vitaa and Dany Synthé are behind some of the entries. The majority of the entries will be entirely in French.
In the last two years, France’s fortunes at the contest have reversed. Amir finished sixth in 2016 with “J’ai cherché”. This was the first time since 2009 that they finished in the top 10. This year France was represented by Alma where her song “Requiem” finished twelfth.
Source: France 2
Let’s just hope “Mercy” isn’t too political. 😮