France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000
France was represented by Sofia Mestari, with the song '"On aura le ciel", at the 2000 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place on 13 May in Stockholm. This was the second year in which broadcaster France 3 had been in charge of the French participation, and as in 1999 they opted to choose their entry via public selection, with a national final being organised on 15 February 2000. However the poor result obtained by Nayah in 1999 followed by the even worse result in 2000, together with the controversy surrounding the 2000 selection process, led to France 3 changing to internal selection in the years following, initially with much greater success.
| Eurovision Song Contest 2000 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country |  | |||
| National selection | ||||
| Selection process | Eurovision 2000: La Sélection | |||
| Selection date(s) | 15 February 2000 | |||
| Selected entrant | Sofia Mestari | |||
| Selected song | "On aura le ciel" | |||
| Finals performance | ||||
| Final result | 23rd, 5 points | |||
| France in the Eurovision Song Contest | ||||
| ||||
Before Eurovision
Eurovision 2000: La Sélection
14 entries were selected to compete in the national final after France 3 requested proposals from record companies in October 1999.[1]
The final took place on 15 February 2000 at L'Olympia in Paris, hosted by Julien Lepers and Karen Cheryl. The winning song was determined by public televoting (50%) and a jury panel (50%). The jury panel included former French Eurovision representatives Patrick Fiori (1993) and Marie Myriam (1977). Only the top three placings were announced.[2]
| Draw | Artist | Song | Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jenny Zana | "Tendresses" | — |
| 2 | Stéphane Godsend | "Nous deux" | — |
| 3 | Ebony | "L'amour en noir et blanc" | — |
| 4 | Christophe Sarti | "C'est une très belle histoire d'amour" | — |
| 5 | ZH | "Tu en fais trop" | — |
| 6 | Sofia Mestari | "On aura le ciel" | 1 |
| 7 | Orijin | "Autour de toi" | 3 |
| 8 | Gildas Thomas | "Pense à moi" | — |
| 9 | Hologramme | "Avec des gants" | — |
| 10 | Aïden Aleksander | "Maintenant" | — |
| 11 | Jessica Ferley | "Espoir" | 2 |
| 12 | Guillaume Eyango | "Libérez" | — |
| 13 | Mademoiselle | "SOS" | — |
| 14 | Soundkaïl | "Jeunes solidaires" | — |
Controversy
A degree of controversy arose when it became known that "On aura le ciel" had been placed first by the jury but "Espoir" had won the televote, receiving 27,000 votes out of the 43,000 received.[1] The explanation of France 3 – that "On aura le ciel" came second in the televote while "Espoir" was ranked only fourth by the jury – prompted complaints that in the event of the televote and jury vote coming up with different winners, the televote should have taken precedence, otherwise there was a degree of dishonesty in asking the public to pay to vote, only for their choice to be overruled by a small group of jurors (A similar controversy would later engulf the 2005 Swedish selection).[3]
At Eurovision
On the night of the final Mestari performed fifth in the running order, following Estonia and preceding Romania. At the close of voting "On aura le ciel" had received only 5 points (3 from Russia and 2 from the Netherlands), placing France 23rd of the 24 entries, ahead only of Belgium. This was the second time in three contests that France had finished one place off the bottom, and led to reiterated claims that the wrong song for a televoting environment had been sent. The 12 points from the French televote were awarded to Turkey.[4]
Points awarded by France
Final
| 12 points |  |
| 10 points |  |
| 8 points |  |
| 7 points |  |
| 6 points |  |
| 5 points |  |
| 4 points |  |
| 3 points |  |
| 2 points |  |
| 1 point |  |
Points awarded to France
| 12 points | 10 points | 8 points | 7 points | 6 points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 points | 4 points | 3 points | 2 points | 1 point |