Paris (AFP)

It's official: singer Tom Leeb, son of humorist Michel Leeb, will represent France at Eurovision, France Televisions announced on Tuesday that this year chose to call on an internal committee to choose who it will send to the competition European song.

"Tom Leeb will represent France at Eurovision in Rotterdam in 2020", and "we are very proud to welcome him on this adventure and to be able to all go to Rotterdam and head for victory", declared during a press point Alexandra Redde, patron of entertainment at France Televisions and head for a few months of the French delegation to Eurovision.

"I will do my best to bring back the trophy!" Said the singer, in a message broadcast by France Télévisions.

As the daily Le Parisien had revealed, this year France Télévisions did not want to renew the program Destination Eurovision, which had served to elect the two previous representatives of France, Bilal Hassani whose song "Roi" had won the last year a modest 16th place in Tel Aviv, and the duo Madame Monsieur, 13th in 2018 with "Mercy".

"We said to ourselves that it is complicated to find 18 songs (to decide between Destination Eurovision, Editor's note) and that it is better to focus on one and give it all our energy. So we decided to redeploy our forces differently and to search for the song internally, "said Alexandra Redde.

With one imperative: "a universal song, which can please audiences from Lisbon to Baku" and make "live a moment, an experience".

The process took place in stages. A small committee auditioned a hundred songs proposed by songwriters, French and foreign.

Then, once the gem was found, the group quickly had the idea of ​​calling on Tom Leeb.

An artist "unique, charismatic, authentic, attractive" and who cultivates "a very interesting pop-folk universe" according to Alexandra Redde.

Big advantage in this international competition: the artist who lived 5 years in the United States is multilingual.

The song interpreted by Tom Leeb, which we do not know yet (except that it will be at least partially written in French) is being recorded and will be released in February.

France Télévisions intends to deploy a vast system, in particular on its antennas but also via a promotion campaign in the countries of Eurovision, to increase the chances of success of Tom Leeb, with the ambition of getting as close as possible to the podium.

"We will go to the end of the dream to have no regrets," promises the head of the tricolor delegation.

© 2020 AFP