And suddenly Eurovision rocks.
In a few words.
Didn't even sing, just scream.
Like a cry from the heart.
"Please help Mariupol, help Azovstal, now."
At the end of his performance, the leader of the Ukrainian group Kalush Orchestra challenges the competition and the 200 million viewers who follow the event almost everywhere in the world and especially in Europe of course.
Here, in theory, we don't do politics.
But this year, it's impossible, when Russia was immediately excluded from the competition after invading Ukraine, while Kalush Orchestra left arch-favorite.
Read alsoMika, co-host of Eurovision: "When the Ukrainian group arrived, I had goosebumps"
The six Ukrainians came to defend "Stefania", originally written by its singer as a tribute to her mother.
“I will always find my way home even if all the roads are destroyed,” the lyrics say.
An image a few months ago, a reality now.
So yes, we had to talk about what is happening in Ukraine, the martyred city of Mariupol, its Azovstal factory where the last soldiers of the commune are entrenched.
A few words to the cheers of the Turin crowd.
Worst score since 2015 for France
Not everyone may have heard, not everyone may have understood.
But the message quickly circulated on social networks.
A phrase that echoed John Lennon's "Give peace a chance", sung by the whole room at the opening of the ceremony.
The matter was heard.
Not on the side of the professional juries who had preferred the United Kingdom, Sweden or Spain and had granted him “only” 192 points.
The public blew up the counters: 439 points, an absolute record.
Ukraine wins with perhaps 631 artistic points, especially political ones.
For the rest, Eurovision remained Eurovision with improbable performances, moments of emotion, embarrassment, surprise too.
We wanted to tell the first candidate, a Czech techno trio, that in 2022 there was no longer any need to come surrounded by old machines and a shambles of electric wires to produce an electro hit in a simple laptop computer.
We wondered why the Romanian representative looked like a Spanish bullfighter.
We wondered about the return of another time of The Rasmus for Finland, star in the 2000s with "In the shadows", frozen in the same music as 20 years ago.
We discovered a Swiss crooner in leather, moving Portuguese singers, a Spanish Rosalia sous, dog-headed Norwegians, Moldavian country and a Polish plagiarism of Lana Del Rey without complex.
And the French in all this?
Our Alvan and Ahez, programmed at the start of the evening, did not however fail with “Fulenn”, “the spark” in Breton, a well-trimmed techno-Celtic which stirred up the evening… but not the voters.
With 9 points on the jury side and 8 on the public side, France finished in the depths of the ranking, penultimate, just ahead of Germany.
His worst score since 2015.
