Bookmakers, haters ... Tom Leeb's obstacle course to Eurovision

• Tom Leeb will represent France in the Eurovision 2020 final on May 16 in Rotterdam (Netherlands) with the song "The Best in Me".
• Until then, several events await him between the haters and the odds of the bookmakers, including the promising marathon.

Eurovision singer and politician, it's sometimes the same job. If the second has more responsibility than the first for the destiny of the nation *, or even of the world, both must wage a campaign to glean the maximum number of votes in their favor.

Tom Leeb, the French representative this year, sort of held his first meeting on Sunday evening. After the revelation of the song The Best in Me with which he will defend the French chances in Rotterdam (Netherlands) on May 16, the singer spoke before an audience of journalists, fans, but also ambassadors gathered in a cocktail room on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower.

LeTom Leeb, representative of #France at # Eurovision 2020, delivers his first candidate speech alongside the head of delegation, Alexandra Redde-Amiel. pic.twitter.com/gNW1aQE8OO

He stepped behind a desk and began his speech, with the solemn tone of a presidential candidate. "France needs songs. France needs a victory at Eurovision, and we are here to bring it back, this cup! He said, smiling. To keep the promise of tomorrows who sing (or, at least, do not disappoint too loudly) at the competition, Tom Leeb will have to face stinky balls and obstacles of all kinds. Explanations.

• The haters

Tom Leeb can be rather serene, his opponents to Eurovision will be less tough than those of a political figure running for a mandate. The musical event aims to be good-natured and conducive to friendship between peoples and therefore between the candidates. Officially, in Rotterdam, all artists will worship each other. Unofficially, some will be sincere. And, concretely, there will be only the representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia to, potentially, look at each other in faience, as the two countries have made Eurovision a showcase to expose their different histories .

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Tom Leeb will however have to beware of haters. The Eurovision fan community is capable of absolute benevolence, but it is sometimes distinguished by sarcasm and acrimony. When the song of the Frenchman leaked online on Sunday, many fans of the competition expressed their disappointment in terms that were sometimes not very diplomatic.

The French song joining the eurovision 2020 lineup like pic.twitter.com/HijdWuKrpt

Oh dear, the French Eurovision entry is like an X Factor winner's song circa 2007. pic.twitter.com/TFrvqMIAz3

Me listening to the French #Eurovision 2020 song. pic.twitter.com/7YKvpkYbYK

Tom Leeb said he had "not had time" to take a look. He relativized: “It is a platform on which people express themselves freely. We must not fall into what will be said, whether positive or negative. ” To face the annoying, the singer puts on the step back. “I will trust who I am. From the moment when I know that we cannot please everyone, we go there freely, we live its history. "

Alexandra Redde-Amiel, the head of delegation, said: “Our objective is Rotterdam, of course there will be opinions, of course we will look at certain things, but we will stay focused. Note that the critics, even the most virulent, do not directly target Tom Leeb but the song. Invective ad hominem are spared him, that's already taken.

• Francophonie

The Best in Me was delivered almost turnkey to France by a Swedish team. The original text was signed by John Lundvik. Only his refrains, in English, have been preserved. Tom Leeb adapted the verses in French with the help of Amir. "We found something to groove , we had to find the words to be as fluid in French as in English," says the singer. He says he is beginning to take a liking to sing in his mother tongue when, until then, his personal compositions were in the language of John Meyer, Ben Howard, Matt Corby, Bob Dylan or Neil Young, whom he cites as influences.

After I searched for Amir, Alma's Requiem and King of Bilal Hassani, it will be the fourth time in five years that France will compete in Eurovision with a bilingual piece. He will therefore once again have to face the fiercest defenders of the Francophonie.

The senator of Isère and ex-secretary of state André Vallini, is one of them. “What shocks me is that 80% of the song is written in English. The authorities which chose it undoubtedly wanted to increase the chances of success of this song, by thinking of being in fashion. However, I think they are wrong. (…) If even at the level of the bodies which are supposed to defend France and its influence, we end up with this kind of capitulation, it is really hopeless, ”he declared to Le Figaro on Monday.

On this point, Tom Leeb should not have too much to worry about. A month ago, in front of the press, Antoine Boiley, the secretary general of the France Télévisions antennas, assured that the “false controversies” about the place of English in the tricolor songs of Eurovision belong to the past. "We all understood in France that it was not a Francophone competition, but a song contest in which France participates," he said. The tricolor delegation "assumes", and that is already a stone in me in Tom Leeb's shoe on its way to Rotterdam.

• The bookmakers

If the weekly polls assess the popularity of policies, for the artists of Eurovision, it is the ratings of the bookmakers who serve as a barometer. It turns out that after the officialization of the candidate song, The Best in Me , the tricolor rating plunged.

On Eurovision World, which compiles the odds of several online betting sites, France went from 18th place on Sunday to 21st place on Tuesday. This does not mean that the bookmakers promise 21st final place to France, but that twenty countries seem to them to have more chances of winning the competition. By way of comparison, Lithuania is experiencing a reverse dynamic. Since her song, On Fire , was chosen on Saturday evening, it has moved from 23rd place to 3rd place in the countries most likely to win the trophy.

Evolution of the odds of victory for France in February 2020. - Eurovisionworld screenshot

Recall that in all 41 countries will participate in the 2020 edition and that 26 will be in the final. France, as the main financial contributor, is automatically qualified like Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. Take current measurements with tweezers. They only become more relevant during the week of the competition, once we have had an idea of ​​what each candidate offers during rehearsals on the competition stage. In addition, to date, barely a dozen songs have been formalized.

However, the fall among bookmakers - linked to the coldness with which the song was received - is not a good signal for France. Tom Leeb has three months to reverse the trend.

• Marathon

The Eurovision final will take place on May 16. Until then, Tom Leeb should have few chances to breathe. Alexandra Redde-Amiel claims to have "prepared" the artist for what awaited him. Except that the competition is not something imagined, but lived. When their candidacy is formalized, all candidates claim to know where they set foot. Then, a few weeks later, they discover a third dimension of which they were not aware: the eurovisionnesque bubble, made up of invested fans, influential blogs in the little papers of which it is better to know how to find its place, but also concerts in Amsterdam, London or Madrid, bringing together, in March and April, several of the artists in the running.

For the moment, several events remain to be confirmed on Tom Leeb's agenda - there is a good chance that he will be playing at the Amsterdam concert, for example -, but he will soon have a glimpse of what awaits him. On the horizon: a sort of parallel universe where diplomatic relations are tied to the rhythm of musical scores, where the ratings of bookmakers can rock an empire, where the economy is indexed on the "12 points", the maximum score that a jury can assign to an artist.

In the competition, Tom Leeb will only have two slots to rehearse on the Eurovision stage. He will have time to sing his song in full three times before giving way to the next one. Everything will be timed, millimeter, counted. He will also have to appear and sing, the week of the competition, in the various evenings organized in Rotterdam.

In short, Eurovision is a washing machine from which everyone comes out rinsed, wrung out, dried before going on to a traditional “post-Eurovision depression” (yes, the concept exists) at the height of the blow of slack felt when the party qu 'we waited impatiently and that we lived repacked its flonflons, making happy and disappointed.

"The first thing Amir said to me was," Dude, you're going to have the experience of a lifetime! "Said Tom Leeb on Sunday. I was put on a path of enthusiasm and kindness. I will be on the most beautiful stage in Europe, each evening will be an extra experience until May 16. I see it as a challenge, but above all as a challenge to surpass myself. He will be served.

* The song E Depois do adeus by Paulo De Carvalho, with which Portugal finished last in the Eurovision competition in 1974, a few weeks later served as the starting signal for the Carnation Revolution.

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