First look at France 🇫🇷

Happy weekend tous les deux!

It's just one week now until the big day, and also the time that our 5 finalists swing into action with their second rehearsals (the first available to us mere mortals).

I'll be taking you through France and the host Italy's rehearsals, before Ben takes over to ensure there's no favouritism for my former countries of UK and Germany, or my personal favourite Spain.

Each of the 4 non-hosts will also be drawing their halves for the final, so keep an eye out for that too! 🇫🇷🇬🇧🇪🇸🇩🇪

Pre-rehearsal bias check: Always seen this as a slice of classic ethno-dance Eurovision, destined for the bottom 5.

The stream is having its usual morning issues, so we've only glimpsed 10 seconds of France's rehearsal so far.

Think Hohrehronie meets Water meets Tii. 💚

OK we got to see half of the second run-through.

This feels very….messy at the moment. A lot of hectic screen shots and close ups of the women and (not enough of) the cute guy. The cameraman has had too many coffees and the nightclub in a forest vibe is memorable but not really going to prompt votes.

There’s some strange vocal affectation and a spoken word ending that gives it a school talent show folk-poetry feel.

We get a glimpse of the postcard, filmed in an alpine town, but honestly these postcards are very meh, a big disappointment from Italy.

Watching this feels like I’m being cursed but in a catchy way, the stage is all green swirls and fire. There are strange screen stutters to combine with screeches and noises.

The outfits are black with simple gold embellishment which brings some elegance to the proceedings.

The movements around the stage are simple and our boy is still doing his weird stand-dancing. It all feels quite similar to the NF performance.

Verdict: Could somehow capture imagination of telemeters in a slow line-up, could equally be too out there and join Germany in the bottom 5.