France was represented by five-member group

Profil Profil may refer to: *La Mouette Profil, a French hang glider design *Profil (band), a French musical group *''Profil (literary magazine)'', a Norwegian literary magazine *''profil (magazine)'', an Austrian news magazine * ''Profil (Russian magaz ...

, with the song "Hé, hé M'sieurs dames", at the

1980 Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest 1980 was the 25th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in The Hague, Netherlands, and was organised by host broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) – which agreed to stage the event a ...

, which took place on 19 April in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

Before Eurovision

National final

Having chosen their 1979 entry by internal selection, broadcaster TF1 returned to a public selection using the same format as in 1976-1978, with two semi-finals followed by the final on 23 March 1980.

Semi-finals

Each semi-final contained seven songs, with the top three in each going forward to the final. The qualifiers were chosen by public televoting. Other participants included 1969 contest winner

Frida Boccara Danielle Frida Hélène Boccara (29 October 1940 – 1 August 1996) was a Moroccan-born French singer of Italian descent, who performed and recorded in a number of languages, including French, Spanish, English, Italian, German, Dutch and Russia ...

and

Minouche Barelli Minouche Barelli (13 December 1947 – 20 February 2004), born Mary-Pierre Barelli, was a French singer, best known internationally for her participation in the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest. Barelli was born in Paris, the daughter of singer Luc ...

, who had represented

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

in 1967.

Final

The final took place on 23 March 1980, hosted by

Évelyne Dhéliat Évelyne Dhéliat (born 19 April 1948) is a French weather presenter and former continuity announcer. Early life and education Évelyne Dhéliat was born in Cologne. Her father was a commercial director and her mother a perfume store owner. An ...

. The winner was chosen by public televoting.

At Eurovision

On the night of the final Profil performed 16th in the running order, following the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and preceding eventual contest winners

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. "Hé, hé, m'sieurs dames" was a rare French venture into uptempo disposable pop, but did not prove to have great appeal as at the close of voting it had picked up 45 points, placing France 11th of the 19 entries and bringing to an end a run of four consecutive top 3 finishes. The French jury awarded its 12 points to the Netherlands.ESC History - France 1980
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Voting

References

{{Eurovision Song Contest 1980

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – ...

Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 1980

Eurovision The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...