French row over nation's Eurovision pick
Last Updated: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 | 12:14 PM ET
CBC News
A bouncy French pop tune sung almost exclusively in English has sparked a cultural brouhaha after it was named France's official entry for the annual Eurovision Song Contest.
Divine is a synthesizer and drum machine-heavy track from French singer Sébastien Tellier's recently released album Sexuality.
Sébastien Tellier's pop tune Divine, France's official entry for Eurovision, is causing an uproar among French-language purists and politicians.
(Laurent Bochet/Record Makers/Associated Press)
François-Michel Gonnot, a member of France's governing UMP Party, is among the politicians and French-language purists outraged by the song's selection for next month's competition.
"Many of our citizens will not understand why France has chosen not to uphold its language before hundreds of millions of television viewers around the world," Gonnot said earlier this week.
He and other conservative party politicians are calling for organizers of France's Eurovision bid to reconsider the song choice.
Tellier's participation at the competition would mark the first time in Eurovision history that France's contestant has performed in a language other than French.
Stéphane Elfassi, one of Tellier's producers, has defended the singer and said that despite their respective nationalities, most Eurovision participants perform in English.
French Culture Minister Christine Albanel has offered her support to Tellier, but admitted that she felt it "a shame that there is no French song" to represent the nation at this year's competition, which will be in Belgrade, Serbia.
Staged by member countries of the European Broadcasting Union, the Eurovision Song Contest has, at times, required competitors to sing in the official language of their countries. However, this rule was most recently lifted in the late 1990s.
Many past winners performed English-language tunes, including Swedish disco legend ABBA and their winning 1974 song Waterloo.
Canadian chanteuse Céline Dion, who competed on behalf of Switzerland in 1988, took the Eurovision title with the French-language tune Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi.
This year, singers representing a record 43 countries will take the stage for the long-running TV singing competition, which first hit the airwaves in 1956 and is now seen by more than 100 million viewers each year.
The semi-finals for the 53rd Eurovision Song Contest are May 20 and 22, with the final set for live broadcast May 24.
With files from the Associated Press
