Does France have “orders to lose?” Yves Bigot explains himself

EUROVISION – And what if France hasn’t won Eurovision for 40 years due to a lack of talent? show guest C Media On France 5, Sunday 7 May, the former program director of France 2, Yves Bigot, confirmed that he had been ordered not to win the musical competition when he was at the helm of the French public channel.

The reason given by the current CEO of TV5 Monde is, As you can see in the video belowFirst of all, financial. “You are ordered to lose. The problem is that if you win, you organize the following year, 20 to 25 million euros, Explained by Yves Piggott on set from our colleagues. So the chains don’t have that money. Except for small countries, where it is the tourism office or the ministry of tourism that finances. »

asked before ParisianYves Pigot, who was also the head of the Belgian public television channel RTBF, provided some details, explaining that he had alluded specifically to 1999: “ I was in France 2 at that time. Eurovision is one of the events that I have to deal with. Immediately, I had the idea of ​​contacting my friend Jean-Patrick Capdeville who produced A Girl Called Emma Chaplin (…) She had an opera singer side with incredible looks, half sadomasochistic, mid-medieval, perfect for Eurovision. I said to myself: I have a one-two chance of winning “.

Except that the President of France Tilly at the time, Xavier Gouillot-Beauchamp, was clearly not really happy: ” He told me: “So, what does Eurovision look like?” I replied: We will win, boss. And there he adds: above all, don’t do it! Yves Bigot says again, calling for this exchange to be placed “in the context of the time”: “It was shortly after the controversy over the producers of cartoons (…) There were a lot of questions about the financing of public broadcasting and the way in which by whom the money was used “.

The Eurovision rules already state that the winning country organizes – and finances – the next edition. This year, however, it is the United Kingdom that is organizing the competition and not Ukraine, which logically cannot organize such an event due to Russia’s invasion of its territory.

“The rules have changed a lot.”

For example, Le Figaro He indicated in an investigation into Eurovision financing that the Israeli channel KAN had to “Get a fifteen-year loan to guarantee the event” in 2019. Some countries, such as Portugal, Slovakia and Turkey, even refused to participate in the competition in 2013, due to lack of budget.

Yves Bigot confirms that he faced the same scenario in Belgium. After the Flat Country victory in 1986 at Eurovision with Sandra Kim, it would have been RTBF, he said,” They were forced to lay off 2,000 people because of the cost.”

But the former director of France 2 confirms that the dialect in France today is not the same. “ The rules have changed a lot. France Télévisions wants to win. In addition, Delphine Ernott, Group President is currently President (for a two-year term) of the EBU, the European Broadcasting Union that organizes Eurovision. She wants more participation in the competition He still admits Parisian.

La Zara is well ranked by bookmakers

Beyond financial considerations, Yves Bigot is of the opinion that if France does not win Eurovision, it is also because the competition does not really correspond to what the French listen to. “France is not in the world of pop which is the world of Eurovision”and thus the group has been judged C Media.

But in Liverpool this year, with Zara, things may change for France at Eurovision. Armed with her looks, Eve Piggott considers the Canadian to be ” Different “ And his unique style of music, he has every chance of winning with his song certainly. A point of view shared by the bookmakers, who already put him in third place after the last rehearsals. The answer is Saturday, May 8, a fateful day for the 37 nations competing this year.

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