Country France Selection date(s) 15 February 2000 Selected song "On aura le ciel" | Selection process National Final Selected entrant Sofia Mestari Final result 23rd, 5 points | |
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. 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.
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Final
The national final was held at L'Olympia in Paris, hosted by Julien Lepers and Karen Cheryl. Fourteen songs took part with the winner chosen by a 50:50 split between televoting and an "expert" jury. Only the top three placings were announced, and 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, it was rumoured by a very large margin. 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.)
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.