Radio transmitted the contest due to the country's absence that year. France has often changed the selection process used in order to find the country's entry for the contest, either a national final or internal selection (occasionally a combination of both formats) has been held by the broadcaster at the time. Contest history France is one of the most successful countries in the Eurovision, winning the contest five times, coming second five times and coming third seven times. However, France has only hosted the Eurovision contest three times (1959, 1961, 1978). France was ranked first in number of victories (either alone or tied with other countries) without interruptions from 1960 to 1993. Moreover, Amina was close to victory with the song "" in 1991, when she finished in joint first place (with the same number of points as Sweden). Therefore, the 'countback' rule applied, but both countries had an equal number of twelve points (four lots), but the victory went to Sweden, when France had fewer 10-point scores. Today, with the new rules, France would have won the competition, because they received points from more countries than Sweden. One year before, France was also close to winning with Joëlle Ursull performing Serge Gainsbourg's song "White and Black Blues". The song finished in equal second place with Ireland's entry. However, in recent years, the French results have been mixed. Since 1998, when the televoting was introduced, France has almost always ranked in the bottom 10 countries in the final, coming 15th (2004), 18th (2003 and 2008), 19th (1999 and 2008), 22nd (2006, 2007 and 2012), 23rd (2000, 2005 and 2013), 24th (1998 and 2022), 25th (2015), and 26th (last place, for the first time in their Eurovision history) in 2014. France has had some good results during the 21st century. In 2001, Canadian singer Natasha St-Pier came 4th with her song "", being the favourite to win the contest by fans and odds. This good result was carried into the 2002 contest, when Sandrine François came 5th with "" and received the Marcel Bezençon international press award for the best entry of that year. Finally, the positive experience with Sébastien Tellier in 2008 created considerable interest among the French show business for the contest, which resulted in the fact that Eurovision is seen now in the French media as a great advertising campaign and it has been decided that big names