France's entry for the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest leaked out on Thursday, despite attempts to keep it under wraps for an official unveiling on Sunday.

"/> France's entry for the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest leaked out on Thursday, despite attempts to keep it under wraps for an official unveiling on Sunday.

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EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

Eurovision entry leaks before official launch

France's entry for the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest leaked out on Thursday, despite attempts to keep it under wraps for an official unveiling on Sunday.

Eurovision entry leaks before official launch
Ueli Frey

The song, “Echo: You & I”, was recorded by the Indonesian-born singer Anggun, who was chosen by French television executives in November.

The Eurovision Song Contest will take place in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku on May 26th. Unlike some countries, France does not run a competition with public voting to choose its entry, preferring instead to make the choice behind closed doors.

The extract of the song was available on the amazon.fr website on Thursday, although it seemed to have been removed on Friday morning.

Several newspaper websites carried other links to the song, including Le Figaro.

The song was produced by Veronica Ferraro, who works with France’s internationally known DJ David Guetta.

The upbeat track marks a change of direction for France, which last year entered a classical opera singer.

“I really wanted to do a show à l’américaine,” Anggun is reported to have said. 

The song will be in French and English, also a change of direction for a country which likes to protect music sung in its native tongue.

The full song will be available on the website of France 3 on Sunday at 4pm.

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EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

Canadian vies for Swiss in Eurovision contest

A Canadian singer was picked at the weekend to represent Switzerland in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest set to take place in Stockholm in May.

Canadian vies for Swiss in Eurovision contest
Photo: SRF

Rykka, a singer-songwriter from Vancouver, won the Swiss televised final on Saturday night, beating five other competitors with her English-language song, The Last of Our KInd.

She won the most votes both from a ten-member expert jury and TV viewers who selected their favourites by telephone.

The competition was broadcast from the small town of Kreuzlingen, in the canton of Thurgau, where contestants presented an array of styles featuring everything from cow bells to a smiley-filled LED backdrop.

Thirty-year-old Rykka, the stage name for Christina Maria Rieder, sang in the centre of a stage filled with dry ice.

Currently a resident of Meilen in the canton of Zurich, she has already produced four albums, one of them under the stage name she now uses.

She will represent Switzerland in the Eurovision semifinal on May 12th.

If she makes the cut, she will advance to the final on May 14th.

Switzerland permits foreigners to represent the country in Eurovision, a contest organized by the European Broadcasting Union with participants from 43 countries.

The last time a Canadian competed for the Swiss was in 1988, when Céline Dion participated and won the competition before going on to become an international superstar.

Check out Rykka's winning entry below:

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