Europe 1 with AFP 2:23 p.m., March 6, 2022

The Breton group with an electro tendency, Alvan & Ahez, will represent France at Eurovision next May, the public and a jury of professionals decided on Saturday evening during a special program broadcast on France 2.

The Breton group with an electro tendency, Alvan & Ahez, will represent France at Eurovision next May, the public and a jury of professionals decided on Saturday evening during a special program broadcast on France 2. The Breton quartet, made up of three singers and an electro musician, won over the public and the jury with their song "Fulenn" (meaning "spark" and "young girl" in Breton) inspired by a Breton legend.

“Thank you for doing so much honor to our language”

He succeeds Barbara Pravi, who offered second place to France last year with her song "Voilà".

A classification that the country had not known since 1991. In Brittany, the reactions are numerous on Sunday after the success of the group which has the particularity of singing in Breton.

“Long live Brittany, long live our regional languages!”, reacted on Twitter the socialist president of the region Loïg Chesnais-Girard.

"Thank you for doing so much honor to our language", enthused on Twitter the network of Diwan schools, which practices immersion in Breton from kindergarten and which says it is "very proud of Marine and Sterenn, former students of the Diwan Kemper college (Quimper in French, editor's note)".

It will not be the first time that the Breton will be present at Eurovision.

In 1996, Dan ar Braz & L'Héritage des Celtes represented France with "Diwanit bugale" ("Let children be born" in French) and came 19th.

Italy will host the 66th edition of this competition

This success also comes 50 years after the legendary concert at the Olympia on February 28, 1972 by Alan Stivell, often considered the starting point of the Breton cultural awakening and who had internationalized Breton music.

The final of the Eurovision Song Contest, marked this year by the exclusion of Russia due to the war in Ukraine, will take place on May 14 in Turin and will be presented by Laura Pausini and Mika.

Italy will host the 66th edition of this competition after the victory of the Italian rockers dressed in leather Maneskin, last year in Rotterdam.

It will be the third Italian edition of Eurovision, after Naples in 1965 and Rome in 1991. Eurovision is one of the most watched shows in the world with more than 200 million viewers.