France was represented by
Catherine Ferry, with the song "Un, deux, trois", at the
1976 Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 was the 21st edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in The Hague, Netherlands, following the country's victory at the with the song "Ding-a-dong" by Teach-In (band), Teach-In. Organised by t ...
, which took place on 3 April in
The Hague.
Before Eurovision
National final
Broadcaster
TF1
TF1 (; standing for ''Télévision Française 1'') is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network.
TF1 is par ...
opted to choose their 1976 entry via public selection. Two semi-finals were held, followed by the final on 29 February.
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.
Final
The final took place on 29 February 1976, hosted by Evelyn Leclercq,
Enrico Macias
Gaston Ghrenassia (born 11 December 1938), known by his stage name Enrico Macias, is an Algerian-French singer, songwriter and musician of Algerian Jewish descent.
Early years
Gaston Ghrenassia was born to a Sephardic Algerian Jewish family i ...
and
Demis Roussos. Again the winner was chosen by public televoting
At Eurovision
On the night of the final Ferry performed 17th in the running order, following
Monaco and preceding
Yugoslavia. France had rarely taken the Eurovision route of uptempo, bouncy and lyrically unchallenging pop songs, but had done so with "Un, deux, trois". Prior to the contest most observers noted that the 1976 contest was the easiest for many years to predict, with "Un, deux, trois" and the
United Kingdom's "
Save Your Kisses for Me" as the only possible winners. The predictions proved accurate as the two quickly surged well ahead of the field in the voting, and after half the national juries had given their votes France held the lead by 82 points to the United Kingdom's 77. However the United Kingdom scored the stronger in the second half, and ran out the winner with 164 points to France's 147. However "Un, deux, trois" finished a huge 55 points ahead of third-placed Monaco. "Un, deux, trois" had picked up five maximum 12s (from
Austria,
Germany, Monaco, the
Netherlands and
Yugoslavia) and gained the distinction of becoming the first ever non-winning Eurovision song to pick up points from every other national jury. In terms of points received as a percentage of the maximum possible total (72.06%) it remains the most successful runner-up ever under the 12 points system and outranks most subsequent winners.
ESC History - France 1976
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The French jury awarded its 12 points to Portugal.
Voting
References
{{Eurovision Song Contest 1976
1976
Events January
* January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force.
* January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
* January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...
Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 1976
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 ...