France: Four acts qualify for the Destination Eurovision final!

Tonight, we saw the first ever live semi final of the acclaimed French national selection – Destination Eurovision! The night began with each of the nine contestants performing a cover of their choice, followed by fully-staged performances of their prospective Eurovision entries. Three hours later, we have four of the eight acts that will compete for the French ticket to Tel Aviv on January 26!

50% of the Destination Eurovision final line up revealed

So who are the finalists? Below are the four songs that qualified for the final:

• Aysat – “Comme une grande“
• Bilal Hassani – “Roi“
• Chimène Badi – “Là-haut“
• Silvàn Areg – “Le Petit Nicolas“

This meant that the following acts didn’t advance to the final, and so were knocked out of the running for the ticket to Tel Aviv:

• Naestro – “Le brasier“
• Battista Acquaviva – “Passio“
• Florina – “In The Shadow“
• Lautner – “J’ai pas le temps“
• Mazy – “Oulala“

Points breakdown

Here’s a breakdown of the points received from the televote and the international jury:

Format

In Destination Eurovision 2019, all three shows will have a jury of international experts who will be voting for their favourite songs, their points accounting for 50% of the total (the rest being televote points). Both semi-finals will have a jury of five international experts, and the final will have a jury of ten international experts. These jurors are unique to each semi, and as such, each juror will vote once (in only one show).

As previously reported, tonight’s international jurors were:

• David Tserunyan, Head of the Armenian Delegation, Junior Eurovision producer and songwriter (Armenia 2017, in both ESC and JESC)
• Tali Eshkoli, Eurovision 2019 co-producer and creator/producer of the Israel Calling pre-party
• Paul Jordan, aka “Dr. Eurovision”, Eurovision specialist for the BBC
• Sanja Vučić, Serbian representative in Stockholm 2016, already an international juror for Eurovision Song CZ 2018
• Carla Bughalo, Eurovision 2018 co-producer and current member of the Eurovision Reference Group

In addition, the acts received comments from an “Expert Jury” of French singers/songwriters (André Manoukian, Vitaa and Christophe Willem) who gave their opinion on each performance, but did not have a say on the outcome. 

Want to know more about the artists and the songwriters ahead of the next semi? Then our comprehensive and complete guide of the selection is the way to go!

Stay tuned for the second semi final of Destination Eurovision, which takes place 19th January at 21:00 (CET). In the meantime, be sure to follow @ESCXTRA on Twitter and like our Facebook page for the latest updates!