2023

• Hosted in: Nice, France

• Won by: France – Coeur by Zoe Clauzure

• UK entry: Back to Life by Stand Uniqu3

This is the fourth and final part of the “French monopoly” saga: With the return of Germany, this is the first, and so far only, time in the contest’s history that all members of the “Big Five” – the biggest financial contributors to the EBU – competed together. This is surprising given that they had regular appearances in the adult contest, receiving a bye to the grand final every year. Speaking of one of the members of the big five, after a successful plot revenge in 2022, The contest returned to France for the second time in three years, this time in a city with a very nice name - Nice. Organizers responsible for selecting the French entry on home soil this year have decided to slow things down. Slightly. VEEEEEEEERY slightly. Their representative, Zoe Clauzure, who had started her career by singing covers of popular songs on YouTube, sang “Coeur”, an emotionally resonant tune with an anti-bullying theme.

The performance had nothing to do with that though, as it consists of Zoe dancing on a heart-shaped piano, combined with too much lighting. However, many people – or at least me – saw many similarities with another French singer: Slightly blonde hair? Check. Pink dress? Check. Voice Kids Contestant? Check. Coincidence? I don’t think so. In the end, whether the organizers liked it or not, France steamrolled to its third victory, topping both the jury and online votes, and now on its way to become THE most successful country in Junior Eurovision history, 1 win away from surpassing Georgia.

At least, Spain can still prove that they can leapfrog even when they’re down. Having missing the podium twice in its history, and only finishing outside the top five, that being a record-low 15th in 2021, also in France, Sandra Valero represented her country’s return by performing “Loviu”. This catchy pop tune managed to finished second in the online vote, and third in the jury vote, finishing 2nd overall.

 

We’re SO back. Apart from Zoe Clauzure, the juries seemed to favor Armenia, fresh off from hosting last year, with a trendy and girl-driven song. “Do it my way” by Yan Girls is somewhat of a Malena wannabe being performed by a girl group. Despite these, juries voted them 2nd, but an online vote score of 64 brought them down to 3rd. Grateful to see Armenia carrying the momentum since that win in Paris, one lower position at a time. Contrary to popular belief, the podium sitters in jury voting are really close, in fact the race to second place was intense. A 20-point gap between first and second, and a one, glorious point margin between second and third once the jury voting was completed. All three podium sitters have 4 douze points each. However, when it comes to the online voting, they made the results look far and wide. The final result saw France having a 27-point lead over Spain, and Spain having a 21-point lead over Armenia.

Any expectations of the United Kingdom’s fifth place finish being a fluke and that they would simply flop would be thrown out of the bin. The UK have proved us that they could perform better at the Junior Eurovision stage than whatever the hell just happened (no pun relating to Remember Monday intended) at the adult contest. Stand Uniqu3, not sure why the “e” is replaced by a “3”, is the only group to represent the UK at the contest to date, and came up with, fittingly, “Back to life”, a lively and empowering girl-group anthem with strong choreography and vibrant energy. It was favorable by juries alike, but not the online voters, they had other plans. Despite having a 7th-best finish in online voting, they managed to hang on to their 4th place from after the jury voting, now 20 points from 3rd place, making this the UK’s best result since Cory Spedding in 2004. And she’s an adult now. Maybe. Surely they’ll return, right? (This is called foreshadowing)

Rounding out the top 5 was Ukraine. Having last won in 2012, they sent in Anastasia Dymyd (not to be confused with Anastasiya Petryk that won the whole thing), with her song “Kvitka”. As this is now JESC tradition, it is a lyrical, heartfelt ballad performed with grace, though not sure why they had futuristic staging. As you already knew, they finished 5th, though that mainly because the online votes saved them, finishing as low as 9th in the Jury vote, only to be saved by the online voters who gave them the third highest score. Meanwhile, despite initially agreed that France would win again, there were disagreements on who should be the lowest scoring “Big Five” country this year. The online voters argue it was Italy, but the juries said it was Germany with Italy placing above them. In the end though, it was Italy that won the prestigious title of worst big five country this year, finishing 11th.

It has been a long time since the contest advocate for something since they last donated all televoting money to the KidsRights Foundation all the way back in 2012. This year, four of the contest’s French representatives, including one that won and will win the contest: Angelina Nava (2018), Valentina Tronel (2020), Enzo Hilaire (2021), Lissandro Formica (2022) and Zoe Clauzure alongside the rest of the participants sang “We are the world” while wearing white shirts with bold “PEACE” text on it, and with all members of the audience holding the sign of the same thing, in support of the Non-Violence project. Since the following year’s adult contest would have controversies for their contestants advocating the same thing, this contest is the only Eurovision event since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war where it is not only permitted, but also obliged for literally everyone to stage a peace protest.

The French artists are cooking the Junior Eurovision Song Contest right now and the delegation are clearly not enjoying the food at all. Will they cope another year, or will they go full Ireland? (Not that Ireland, they finished last)

Presentation and format

As the contest returned to La France after 2 years, it’s no surprise that Oliver Minne the middle-aged man returned from 2021, alongside Laury Thilleman and Ophenya. The show was held in Nice obviously, specifically at the Palais Nikaia. The theming is quite contrary to the glamour of 2021 – a more colorful, dynamic theme “Heroes”. This should’ve been the slogan for the 2020 contest for real.

This year only half of the countries bothered to send a spokesperson, those who didn’t have their jury points announced by a student from the International School of Nice, this includes, rather bizarrely, the United Kingdom. The scoreboard might've caused too much Deja Vu for the kids, because it looked too similar to 2021! The generic logo finally got some love this year – literally, with the missing heart symbol commonly seen in the adult contest, but not in the Junior contest, finally re-added with the flag of the host country in it changing every year. That ultimately was short-lived due to the new generic logo in 2025.

It’s no doubt that the producers clearly loved the postcards in the 2014 adult contest, and decided to mash them with the “Heroes” theme. The postcards feature the contestants, emerging on top of the Palais Rusca, helping people in dire situations by sending super powers to them, ending with the country’s flag being formed. Stand Uniqu3 helped a kid to turn from not being able to turn a Rubik’s cube at all to being able to form a mosaic of the Union Jack.

The show moved to BBC Two this year, despite as much as 5,2 million tuned in to watch at least one-minute last year, though mainly because the Beeb barely cared. It thankfully still had airtime on CBBC. Lauren Hayfield and Hrvy returned for commentating duties from last year.