(Paris) France announced Thursday to rely on Eurovision 2023 in May for Quebecer La Zarra, revealed by its success you will go away in 2021, without going through a jury and public vote as in recent years.
“It’s very funny, when I was little, my mother used to sing to me The child and the bird “, told AFP the singer. ” It’s a sign ! exclaims next to her Alexandra Redde-Amiel, head of the French delegation to Eurovision.
It was with this title that the Franco-Portuguese Marie Myriam won the last French victory in Eurovision in 1977.
According to Alexandra Redde-Amiel, director of entertainment and games for the France Télévisions group, the external selection, by vote of a jury and the public, put on hold in 2023, “will return in 2024”.
The artist La Zarra – stage name chosen in reference to The kid, nickname of Edith Piaf – cultivates an image between glamor and mystery. His age is unknown. She just said in the paper The Parisian come from a family of seven children born in Quebec to North African parents.
PHOTO DENIS GERMAIN, ARCHIVES SPECIAL COLLABORATION
La Zarra performing at the Francofolies de Montréal, in June 2022
During Eurovision, scheduled for May 13 in Liverpool, she will defend France with a song that will be unveiled soon. “With Eurovision, my character of La Zarra will evolve, grow and there may be little surprises,” says the singer.
For Alexandra Redde-Amiel, “La Zarra is full of characters: it is mysterious, iconic, extravagant, discreet, embodies French chic, is charismatic. Everything is in place for a very beautiful future winner, ”she judges.
The artist, who lives mainly these days in Paris, “feels a little French”. “I was quickly adopted, Quebec and France are very close. I don’t know if it’s because of our accent (laughs) but you like us, and it’s a pride to represent France”, develops the one who says she has “the French variety” in her “DNA”.
How does she manage the song of a lifetime, the one to be performed in mondiovision? “I can’t sleep at night (laughs). More seriously, I did a lot of combat sports, boxing: we repeat the movements so that the body learns; for Eurovision, we will repeat, repeat, until it is easy to sing in front of hundreds of millions of viewers”.
In 2001, France had already been represented at Eurovision by a Canadian, Natasha St-Pier, who finished fourth.