France | First Destination Eurovision Semi-Final Qualifiers Decided

Tonight the first semi final of Destination Eurovision, France's selection format took place, and after the international jury and French public, the four from the nine hopefuls who would qualify were decided, including a storming victory for Bilal Hassani.

Bilal qualified alongside Chiméne Badi, Silván Areg and Aysat to the final in two weeks time and they'll be joined by four more artists from next weeks semi final. Bilal qualified having one both the international jury vote and televote.

Bilal's entry is written by 2018 France entrant Madame Monsieur and he has a YouTube channel with 710 thousand subscribers, which translated into the studio audience giving him a huge reaction every time he sang or his song appeared in the recaps. Silvan stood out tonight with his quirky performance which involved little cut outs of a park and cars and a treadmill, hidden cleverly by camera angles and close ups, its unique charm and mix or rap and traditional French melody and instrumentation could make it a dark horse to snatch the whole thing.

Chimene gave a solid powerful performance of her song which involved her being inside a box with purple and pinkish hues appearing on the box. She gave a stellar performance which the public agreed with - placing her second in the televote and catapulting her into the qualifying spot after the juries only placed her fifth. Aysat gave a powerful and fun dance performance, with four backing dancers and a slick dance break chorus which got us dancing in our chairs across Europe!

The full results are as follows: