2025

 

• Hosted in: Tbilisi, Georgia

• Won by: France - C’est monde by Lou Deleuze

This is sixth part of the French monopoly saga: Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no…

After Georgia claimed the title of most JESC wins outright in 2024 with what is still the greatest JESC entry ever, at the expense of the ever-so-dominant France, they are back to host the contest in 2025. In Tbilisi, just in a different gymnasium. After the many controversies of last year’s contest, the contest was finally back where it should belong: No AI (even if Armenia’s and Malta’s used one during their respective music videos), back to the same old voting procedure (unfortunately), contested by 16 countries and one looming problem.

Since the start of this decade, France has been the mark to beat in this contest, being beaten only twice up until this point since their first win in 2020: 2021 and 2024. Yes, may I remind you that they have won back to back before, and no they refused to host 2024.

Their entry this year was a ballad chansonesque C’est monde performed by Lou Deleuze, aka Barbara Pravi Jr. The song expressed a better tomorrow, much like J’Imagine when it was written during the COVID-19 pandemic, though it wasn’t made in the same upbeat tune as the previous winners, but rather a more emotional one, combined with staging consisting of only yellow lights borrowed from Lissandro’s aunt, and a dress that made her chubbier than she actually is.

Despite this, as it turns out, that was enough. France got sets of 12 points from juries for the first time since 2023 and won the jury vote and second in the online voting to secure France’s fourth win in six years. Valentina unfortunately did not commentate as this was the case for last year (whom I imagine she hurled her headphones in disappointment). Zoe Clauzure did instead. Do with this information whatever you want, but that simply meant France is once again tied with hosts Georgia for the most wins. Too much? I preferred Georgia as much as I liked the French.

Who won the online vote? Ukraine. Say goodbye to an Ukrainian in a box and say hello to… an Ukrainian on rain. Tonight wasn’t nice to Sofia Nersesian - who has started her song, as it was the case with 2004’s Ruslana, with a powerful, majestic start. Unfortunately without a battle horn of some kind. Though what they did use was cartoon rain – one can say it’s in the same style as the one seen in Mans Zelmelow’s “Heroes”, before switching to a different art style entirely because… reasons. The rest of the song was more of a boing boing. Ukraine led the standings from after receiving their points up until France recieved theirs. Given Ukraine never won JESC for 13 years now, was that cruel?

After Spain, Netherlands, and Ireland withdrew from the adult contest next year due to Israel participation – this is basically the only good Eurovision left. To be really honest, everyone would prefer to pick France winning every single time over Israel threatening the top every single time due to state-backed propaganda votes. Even Ireland would rather want themselves dead last – despite sending a hard ballad which I rank highly of, Ireland found themselves, once again, 18th out of 18 countries. Lottie cried, TG4 shrugged. Second to last in the jury vote, with a pathetic 3, and 3rd to last in the online vote, tied with Portugal. One might wonder, as Davit explained in the voting procedure that “if you don’t get any points, that doesn’t mean the juries don’t like you”, does that mean Ireland was ranked 11th amongst most national juries? Think about it.

Wait, Portugal? Yes, Portugal. Despite sending an absolute chilling song amongst a sea of very noisy and/or vocal-breaking songs, and went ahead used as many pieces of silk in their staging as possible, Portugal is still joint 3rd to last in the online vote. 12th place in the jury vote bumped them to 13th, tied with Italy, only lost by – you guessed it – online vote points. Cruel much? This year was the first I watched live, and I’ve learned from this show is that not only shouldn’t I stay up at midnight but also I shouldn’t trust anything from a jury panel of 2 children and 3 adults, and online voters scattering across 187 other countries, excluding mine. 

This year saw the return of the first ever JESC winner – Croatia. Bonus points for not making Marino Vrgoc’s country dead last as it was the case for 2014, which left them to an 11-year appearance drought. Unfortunately they are bottom five, even though a song like his should’ve been around like, what? 10th? 9th? Still the country’s broadcaster hoped they would return like this every single year, with the sole condition of not being in the puddle every year with Ireland, regardless of how good.

Meanwhile, Armenia’s entrant, Albert, sent “Brave World”, accompanied by an AI-generated music video. To make up for this, the staging consists of too much smoke, too much white light, too much paper flowers, and some parts of the performance in monochrome. After we found out that Armenia was placed 4th, most people spammed posts congratulating Lou Deleuze with “Armenia was robbed”, “Armenia deserved better”, “Armenia was our real winner”, something like that. Truth is, despite the fact that it can score high places, which it actually did, I don’t rank it as a runaway winner. The song doesn’t compete well with the other, more better songs, and only the staging made people think it was better. Did anyone spammed Armenia in the online voting?

The earliest-released song was Kroni Pula’s “Fruta Perime”, representing Albania, winning the earliest held national final this year, in June, if one doesn’t count The Voice Kids Croatia, where Marino Vrgoc won in April. That song gave us the initial impression for the entire contest as… silly. It was going to be silly. Still, the song survived the flood of new, better songs… barely. I ranked her around 6-7-8 (don’t pull a 6-7 gesture in front of me, go do it in front of a McDonald’s instead), and Albania indeed ranked 6th, with a high of 4th in the online vote, paying off loads of early bird PR. Did Kroni successfully promote healthy eating to everyone? Unfortunately since almost no one knows Albanian, no. Another high in the online vote was San Marino, which sent “Beyond the Stars” by a Honda CR-V- I mean Martina CRV. It’s an okay country song in my opinion. I just think Valentina is a better country singer than her. San Marino is placed 9th.

Just below San Marino is, well well well, the Netherlands. We’re getting RICH with these predictions, as immediately after Meadow won the national final, I predicted the Netherlands to finish mid-table no matter what, while most of you declare her a winner and go back to your boring, miserable lives. “FREEZE” was… something. I don’t think it’s natural to tell the audience to freeze, they just want to bop. Even though the song can make a good impression, it’s an Alan Walker song without Alan Walker, Meadow delivered a performance of all time, that’s what I want to say. As for Spain? Despite in the same exact level as Croatia’s, Gonzalo Pinillos’ “Once upon a time”, is in top five. A song like his finishing in those places better off exist only in a fairytale, the Alexander Rybak one. You like cats and bopping? Azerbaijan’s Yagmur will make you do both.

Right until France won, the hosts kept talking about how successful Georgia is in the contest, and, apart from Andria Putkaradze himself, they invited 2 of the 3 other Georgian winners – Mariam Mamadashvili is nowhere to be seen, even though in a world which is worse than ever, the last thing I wanted is to listen to a new song from Mariam herself. Still, Bzikebi and CANDY cooked absolute CHOKEHOLDS during the interval acts, sending out “We don’t sleep” (it’s almost perfect, they could’ve added at least 3 bzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbzbz) and “Code” (not to be confused with Nemo’s own code) respectively. These will guarantee to pollute my Spotify Wrapped next year, assuming they are indeed on Spotify. The common song went from the start of the show, to the interval, despite the slogan being “United by Music” now (thanks EBU), this year’s common song is this year’s would-be slogan – We’re rising high, performed by all contestants alongside Andria himself. The voting procedure is reverted back to the one pre-2024 – okay, fine, whatever – with Armenia giving false hope for receiving the first 12 points, while a fight between France and Georgia emerges during the jury voting, which is Lou’s very own absolute CINEMA. The online voting doesn’t do a dent as always, apart from Georgia being demoted back down to 3rd, and North Macedonia looks less impressive. Sorry Nela, I didn’t cover your song nor you get high places.

After the contest, France Televisions is in a dilemma – withdraw from hosting the contest, or let Valentina and Oliver Minne host next year’s contest. It can really go either way, all while we return to our normal, miserable lives.

Presentation and format

The contest was held at the Gymnastic Hall at Olympic City in Tbilisi, Georgia, not far away from the original venue of Olympic Palace (different thing), which previously hosted 2017. This have allowed Georgia to host a contest more grander in scale compared to 8 years earlier, at the expense of a smaller green room. I’m extremely happy to announce that Lizi Pop is NOT our host today. Much like Mariam, she is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Davit Aladashvili and Liza Tsiklauri led the show this year. For the first time since the pandemic-hit 2020 edition, which coincidentally France also won, no previous JESC entrant hosted the show itself. Liza also broke tradition (again) by handing over the trophy (same as last year, unfortunately) to Lou Deleuze, even though Andria showed up minutes ago, making this the first instance of the previous JESC winner not handing out the trophy to the next one since 2019, excluding the COVID-hit 2020.

This is the only time this year the EBU have actually acted meaningfully over fan complaints – as after a brief ladder experiment in 2024, the previous voting procedure seen in contests since 2017 have been reinstated, which you no doubt thankful of. The contest also saw, once again, a new logo, based on the adult contest logo unveiled this August, alongside “United by Music” now being fixed once more as the permanent slogan. At least some of the color schemes here give me Liverpool 2023 vibes. My favorite scoreboard possibly? The Montenegrin spokesperson embarrassingly repeated Polish spokesperson Maja Krzyzewska's "our 12 magical points fly over to..." line from last year.

The role of Executive Supervisor is vacant for now, as ESC director Martin Green take over those duties instead. However, similar to last year’s, he is nowhere to be seen either.

The producers have finally realized AI is a bad idea, and went back making normal postcards this year. Similar to 2018, the upcoming contestants wears a VR headset seeing the activities around Georgia. With the exception of in some postcards they are also accompanied by some people! See, they’re not alone, they’re… with someone… Lou (yes, that really is her) saw a dance rehearsal at the Georgian National Opera Theater.

This was the first Eurovision event overall to be produced in 1080p 50fps.