France originally planned to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 with the song "Mon alliée (The Best in Me)" written by Tom Leeb, Léa Ivanne, Amir Haddad, John Lundvik, Peter Boström and Thomas G:son. The song was performed by Tom Leeb. The French broadcaster in collaboration with the television channel internally selected the French entry for the 2020 contest in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Tom Leeb was officially announced by as the French entrant on 14 January 2020 and later the song was presented to the public as the contest entry during a live performance by Leeb on 16 February 2020 during the France 2 programme . As a member of the "Big Five", France automatically qualified to compete in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, the contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Background Prior to the 2020 contest, France had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest sixty-two times since its debut as one of seven countries to take part in 1956. France first won the contest in 1958 with "" performed by André Claveau. In the 1960s, they won three times, with "" performed by Jacqueline Boyer in 1960, "" performed by Isabelle Aubret in 1962 and "" performed by Frida Boccara, who won in 1969 in a four-way tie with the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. France's fifth victory came in 1977, when Marie Myriam won with the song "". France have also finished second four times, with Paule Desjardins in 1957, Catherine Ferry in 1976, Joëlle Ursull in 1990 and Amina in 1991, who lost out to Sweden's Carola in a tie-break. In the 21st century, France has had less success, only making the top ten four times, with Natasha St-Pier finishing fourth in 2001, Sandrine François finishing fifth in 2002, Patricia Kaas finishing eighth in 2009 and Amir finishing sixth in 2016. In 2019, the nation finished in sixteenth place with the song "" performed by Bilal Hassani. The French national broadcaster, , broadcasts the event within France and delegates the selection of the nation's entry to the television channel . confirmed that France would participate in the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest on 23 September 2019. The French broadcaster had used both national finals and internal selection to choose the French entry in the past. The 2018 and 2019 French entries were selected via the national final , however the broadcaster announced