France in the Kross-European Song Kontest

France is one of the funding countries of the KESK contest. They participated in all contests so far.

Wins, Runner Ups and Third Places
France has won the contest four times. They won in 1920 with 20 points, won in 1926 with 281 points, won in 1932 with 13 points and won 27 years later in 1959 with 1018 points. They have come second in 1921 with 25 points, came second in 1923 with 166 points, in 1960 with 541 points and in 1968 with 484 points. They have come third place in 1924 with 202 points, in 1934 with 11 points, and in 1969 with 844 points. They came fourth in 1972 with 150 points. They've come 5th a total of 5 times in 1929, 1933, 1949, 1963 and 1973. They have come 7th the most amount of times at five: 1927, 1935, 1938, 1939, 1950 and 1951. They have sung in French every time except in 1929, 1936, 1940, 1945 and 1967 which received 5th, 9th, 6th, 9th and 15th places respectively.

Recent decline (1932-1950)
The last time France won was in 1932. They are commonly not within the top 5 with the exception of 1949 and have achieved two record-breaking low scores back to back in 1947 with 13th place and 1948 with 15th place. Why has France declined so much lately? It might be due to the fact that France automatically qualifies every year and have done so from 1925-1929 and 1935-1952. It also might be the fact that France doesn't want to host the contest for a sixth time and makes sure they purposely do not win.

Return of the Emperor (1950-1971)
After continuous mediocre results throughout the 1950's, with achieving 15th twice, 13th once, 10th twice and 8th twice, France began to change things up. Although it had achieved two 7th placings, which were above the previous terrible results of the 1940's, France wanted to showcase it's talent to Europe. Suddenly, in 1959, France achieved first place and won for the first time in 27 years, since 1932. To make this achievement better, the 1960's became one of the best and worst decades for French results. They achieved 2nd place twice in 1960 and 1968. They achieved 3rd place in 1969, and 5th place in 1963. They didn't participate in 1965, but of the rest of the decade, they achieved new lows of 20th in 1961 and 21st in 1966. Furthermore, they achieved the painfully average scores of 15th in 1967; 12th in 1964; and 10th in 1962.

New Beginnings (1971-pres)
Since 1971, there has been 14 contests (to 1985) where France finished outside the top ten on only three occasions (11th in 1979, 12th in 1981 and 18th in 1980). It got 7 results within the top 5 including one third place position in 1976 and two runner-up positions in 1978 and 1984.

Hosting
France has hosted the contest a total of five times which is the most of any country. They hosted the 2nd contest, 1921, in Calais; They hosted the 8th contest, 1927, in Lyon; They hosted the 12th contest, 1933, in Paris; They hosted the 17th contest, 1938, in Paris; They hosted the 20th contest, 1945, in Marseilles; They hosted the 35th contest, 1960, in Bordeaux.