The 70th Eurovision final will take place on Saturday in Vienna, an edition marked by a boycott by several countries (Spain, Ireland, Iceland, the Netherlands and Slovenia) which denounce the presence of Israel in the context of the conflict in Gaza. Irish, Spanish and Slovenian public channels even announced that they would not broadcast the competition. Behind its apparent neutrality, politics has always shaken up the famous cathodic show followed by nearly 170 million people around the world. Analysis with Cyrille Bret, researcher at the Delors Institute, teacher at Sciences Po Paris, co-author of the work “Geopolitics of Eurovision”.
What does the call to boycott Eurovision because of Israel’s presence inspire you?
The call for a boycott of the competition by five major European audiovisual groups highlights the historic dimension of Eurovision for KAN, the Israeli public audiovisual group. For KAN, Eurovision is a sounding board for Israeli influence. Israel took over Eurovision after the Six-Day War and after the Yom Kippur War to remedy Israel’s isolation.
For KAN, participating in Eurovision means obtaining a “certificate of respectability” and a “certificate of Europeanness”, even though Israel is neither European nor, in its current government, favorable to the European Union and its values. Eurovision often calls KAN to order: recently, the organizers of Eurovision have pointed out the tendency of the Israeli public authorities to bias the votes of viewers by encouraging them to vote multiple times for the Israeli candidate.
The history of the Eurovision song contest has been punctuated with other calls for a boycott…
Generally speaking, participation, boycott and counter-boycott are part of the history of Eurovision. Turkey, for example, boycotted Eurovision during the 1970s due to the participation of Greece and then, in the 2010s, due to the promotion of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Calls for a boycott can also come from civil societies such as in Sweden where demonstrations have taken place regularly against the cost of Eurovision. Finally, Arab countries are silently boycotting Eurovision: since its creation, Arab audiovisual groups have broadcast the competition but have not presented any candidates. Arab voices remain silent at Eurovision.
While politics is asked every year to stay at the door of the competition, has it not in reality always been present?
All successive competition regulations have banned politics from songs, choreography, costumes, entries, etc. But, in reality the competition has an unsurpassable geopolitical vocation. Its neutrality has constantly been questioned. It was invented in 1956 to unite Europeans after the Second World War. It was used in the 1950s by the dictatorships of Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia) in order to make themselves respectable in the eyes of tourists from Northern Europe.
It was used extensively by the “small” Nordic countries in order to gain visibility in Europe even though they refused, until the 1990s, to join the European construction. And it was used by Russia to speak directly to European viewers during the decade of rapprochement with the EU.
How did geopolitics impact the competition? Have there been other forms of political interference?
There were multiple interferences. They were made by the creators of the competition to contribute to the pacification of Western Europe. They were the work of dictatorships (Russia, Azerbaijan) to make themselves frequentable during the 2000s. They were the work of secondary cities (Liverpool, Malmö) to act as a counterweight to the official capitals of the countries (London, Stockholm respectively).
Finally, they were the work of the European Union which weighed in favor of the exclusion of Russia and Belarus in 2022 but refrained from demanding that of Israel.
How does the evolution of the competition also reflect the transformation of the European continent?
Several major trends on the continent (in the broad sense) manifested themselves in the competition: the aspiration for peace in the 1950s, the desire for leisure and materialism in the 1970s, the impact of the Middle East conflicts on Europe in the 1980s, the reunification with Europe of formerly communist in the 1990s…
Let’s not overestimate the competition: it passed over in silence the struggle of women for their freedom, the struggle of colonized peoples against the powers, etc. Eurovision is Europe. But Europe is not just about Eurovision.
In France, the bet of the young prodigy Monroe
The “decline of the French language”, the “weak mobilization of France Télévisions to organize the rise of the competition among fan communities”the “contempt” of cultural elites… According to Cyrille Bret, everything contributes “To diminish the place of France”in the competition “France is making more testimonial applications than winning Eurovision”. So much so that she has not had her name on the list since Marie Myriam, in 1977. Can the former winner of the show Prodiges, Monroe, put an end to this long series of failures? At 17 years old, which makes her the youngest singer in the running this year, she will wear the colors of France this Saturday in the final, with resolutely lyrical accents.
Has Eurovision become, at the same time, an instrument of soft power for the host countries and cities?
The place of cities in the competition is recent. It dates from the 2000s and the search for funding by the organizers. Reciprocally, the host cities find their interest in the competition. This allows them to attract tourists, change their image, and attract investors. Like Liverpool which took over from kyiv to organize the competition in 2023 due to the war.
Community votes weigh on the competition, you also question yourself in your work (1): are Eurovision spectators themselves, fans, or activists?
In several countries (Azerbaijan, Israel, Russia, etc.) public authorities encourage viewers to vote several times to change the scores and benefit from the popularity of the candidates. In these cases, voters are activists. But the ambition of Eurovision is also to give Europeans a voice to choose.
It is also a reactivation of direct democracy as in the theater competitions of ancient Athens. In this case, participation is an act of fan but also a citizen act of animation of the European cultural space in the broad sense.
