France in the Eurovision Song Contest
overview about the performance of France in the Eurovision Song Contest
France has been represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 68 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. Since 2001, the French participating broadcaster is France Télévisions. Along with Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, France is one of the "Big Five" countries that are automatically prequalified for the final, due to their participating broadcasters being the largest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). 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, with the song "L'Oiseau et l'Enfant" performed by Marie Myriam. During its successful run in the 20th century, France has also finished second four times, with "La Belle amour" by Paule Desjardins (1957), "Un, deux, trois" by Catherine Ferry (1976), "White and Black Blues" by Joëlle Ursull (1990), and "C'est le dernier qui a parlé qui a raison" by Amina (1991), who lost out to Sweden's "Fångad av en stormvind" by Carola in a tie-break.
After reaching the top five in 23 contests in the 20th century, France has had less success in the 21st century, only making the top five four times, with "Je n'ai que mon âme" by Natasha St-Pier (fourth in 2001), "Il faut du temps" by Sandrine François (fifth in 2002), "Voilà" by Barbara Pravi (second in 2021), and "Mon amour" by Slimane (fourth in 2024).
“France in the Eurovision Song Contest” enters the record as overview about the performance of France in the Eurovision Song Contest. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what France, Eurovision and Song can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q597286. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1974, 1982 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “France in the Eurovision Song Contest” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.