OVSC20

## OrbisVision Song Contest #20

 The national anthem of Indonesia, in solidarity with the victims of the 2022 Java earthquake.
 A collection of songs from the late France Gall.
 **Grand Final:**
 Classic chanson songs from Charles Trenet and Édith Piaf.

## Participants

### Debuting

 Saint Pierre and Miquelon
  Sri Lanka

### Returning

 Austria
  Bangladesh
  Belgium
  Brazil
  Ecuador
  The Gambia
  Latvia
  Liechtenstein
  Malta
  Morocco
  Nicaragua
  Palestine
  Poland
  Ukraine

### Withdrawing

 American Samoa
  Australia
  Belarus
  Cyprus
  Greece
  Guernsey
  Ireland
  Kosovo
  Mauritania
  Mexico
  New Zealand
  Nigeria
  Russia
  Serbia
 South Africa
  US Virgin Islands

## Voting

### System

Each country awards a set of 1 - 7 points, followed by 8, 10 and 12 points for their top 3 favourite songs

### Winner

 Poland
 "Samuraj (Helena)" by Ofelia

After their extraordinary win in Melbourne, the OrbisVision Song Contest came to the French capital Paris for the very first time!

This was France's first time hosting and also the ninth time the contest has been to Europe.

The contest consisted of 3 shows, two semi-finals and a Grand Final.

44 countries have confirmed their participation.

Poland won for the first time with the song "Samuraj (Helena)" by Ofelia. They became the eighth country in Europe to win the contest.

## Location

### Host city

Paris, the cosmopolitan capital of France, is one of the largest agglomerations in Europe, with 2.2 million people living in the dense (105 km²) central city in 2022, 10 million people in the Métropole du Grand Paris (814 km²) and almost 13 million people living in the metropolitan area. In the centre-north of the country on the river Seine,

Paris has the reputation of being the most beautiful and romantic of all cities, brimming with historic associations and remaining vastly influential in the realms of culture, art, fashion, food and design.

Dubbed the City of Light (la Ville Lumière) and Capital of Fashion, it is home to some of the world's finest and most luxurious fashion designers and cosmetics, such as Chanel, Christian Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent, Guerlain, Lancôme, L'Oréal, and Clarins. A large part of the city, including the banks of the Seine, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The city has the second highest number of Michelin-starred restaurants in the world (after Tokyo, which is much larger) and contains numerous iconic landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre-Dame de Paris, the Louvre, the Moulin Rouge and the Basilique du Sacré Cœur, making it one of the most popular international tourist destinations in the world, with around 14 million tourists annually.

Paris started life as the Celto-Roman settlement of Lutetia on the Île de la Cité, the island in the Seine now occupied by the Cathédrale de Notre Dame. It takes its present name from the name of the dominant Gallo-Celtic tribe in the region, the Parisii. At least that's what the Romans called them, when they showed up in 52 BCE and established their city Lutetia on the left bank of the Seine, in what is now called the "Latin Quarter" in the 5th arrondissement.

The Romans held out here for as long as anywhere else in the Western Empire, but by 508 CE they were gone, replaced by Clovis of the Franks, who is considered by the French to have been their first king.

Clovis' descendants, aka the Carolingians, held onto the expanded Lutetian state for nearly 500 years through Viking raids and other calamities, which finally resulted in a forced move by most of the population back to the islands which had been the centre of the original Celtic village.

The Capetian Duke of Paris was voted to succeed the last of the Carolingians as King of France, ensuring the city a premier position in the medieval world. Over the next several centuries Paris expanded onto the right bank into what was and is still called le Marais (The Marsh). Quite a few buildings from this time can be seen in the 4th arrondissement.

The medieval period also witnessed the founding of the Sorbonne. As the "University of Paris", it became one of the most important centres for learning in Europe—if not the whole world, for several hundred years. Most of the institutions that still constitute the University are found in the 5th, and 13th arrondissements.

In the late 18th century, there was a period of political and social upheaval in France and Europe, during which the French governmental structure, previously a monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of nationalism, citizenship, and inalienable rights.

Notable events during and following the revolution were the storming of the Bastille 4th arrondissements, and the rise and fall of Napoleonic France. Out of the violent turmoil that was the French Revolution, sparked by the still known Passion des Français, emerged the enlightened modern day France.

The Paris of today was built long after the Capetian and later the Bourbon Kings of France made their mark on Paris with the Louvre and the Palais Royal, both in the 1st.

In the 19th century, Baron von Hausmann set about reconstructing the city, by adding the long straight avenues and replacing many of the then existing medieval houses, with grander and more uniform buildings.

    New wonders arrived during La Belle Époque, as the Parisian golden age of the late 19th century is known. Gustave Eiffel's famous tower, the first metro lines, most of the parks, and the streetlights (which are partly believed to have given the city its epithet "the city of light") all come from this period.

Another source of the epithet comes from Ville Lumière, a reference not only to the revolutionary electrical lighting system implemented in the streets of Paris, but also to the prominence and aura of Enlightenment the city gained in that era.

The twentieth century was hard on Paris, but thankfully not as hard as it could have been. Both world wars took a heavy toll on the city's inhabitants, but at least Hitler's order to burn the city was ignored by the German General von Choltitz, who was quite possibly convinced by a Swedish diplomat that it would be better to surrender and be remembered as the saviour of Paris, rather than its destroyer.

Following the war, the city recovered quickly at first, but slowed in the 1970s and 1980s when Paris began to experience some of the problems faced by big cities everywhere: pollution, housing shortages, and occasionally failed experiments in urban renewal.

    However, post-war Paris enjoyed considerable growth as a multi-cultural city, with new immigrants from all corners of the world, especially La Francophonie, including most of northern and western Africa as well as Indochina.

These immigrants brought their foods and music, both of which are of prime interest for many travellers.
Immigration and multi-culturalism continues in the 21st century with a marked increase in the arrival of people from Latin America, especially Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil.

In the late 1990s, it was hard to find good Mexican food in Paris, whereas today there are dozens of possibilities from lowly taquerias in the outer arrondissements to nice sit-down restaurants on the boulevards.

Nevertheless, Paris remains a French city; bistros, baguettes, high-end fashion, art, accordions, Hausmann architecture, and all the stereotypes (whether good or bad) of France are alive and well in Paris.

    People from all over France flock to Paris for work, study, partying, and everything in between.

After all, this IS the capital of France, so anything pertaining to France can be found here.

The 21st century has also seen vast improvements in the general livability of Paris, with the mayor's office concentrating on reducing pollution and improving facilities for soft forms of transportation including a huge network of cycle paths, larger pedestrian districts and new metro lines.

Visitors who normally arrive car-less are the beneficiaries of these policies as much as the Parisians themselves, although tensions and doubts have emerged over the actual benefits of those measures.

### Venue

Accor Arena (originally known as Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, and previously as AccorHotels Arena; also known as Bercy in competitions where commercial names are prohibited, such as in the Olympic Games) is an indoor sports arena and concert hall located in the neighborhood of Bercy, on boulevard de Bercy, in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, France. The closest métro station is Bercy.

Designed by the architectural firm Andrault-Parat, Jean Prouvé and Aydin Guvan, the arena has a pyramidal shape and walls covered with a sloping lawn. It has a seating capacity ranging from 7,000 to 20,300, depending on the event.

As part of the 2014–15 renovations efforts, the arena was renamed to Bercy Arena on 1 January 2015. It was again renamed to AccorHotels Arena in October 2015, and again to Accor Arena in June 2020.

The arena is one of the main venues for concerts in Paris.

It has hosted numerous French and international performers over the years. Among those who have performed there the most are late French rock singer Johnny Hallyday with 93 solo concerts from 1987 to 2016 and 6 concerts with the group Les vieilles canailles, French singer-songwriter Michel Sardou with 91 concerts from 1989 to 2012, French entertainer Dorothée with 56 concerts from 1990 to 1996 and another one in 2010, Canadian singer Celine Dion with 35 concerts from 1995 to 2017, Canadian-born French singer Mylène Farmer with 33 concerts from 1989 to 2013, Norwegian band A-ha with 2 concerts in 1988 and American singer-songwriter Madonna with 21 concerts from 1990 to 2015.

The Accor Arena is the main venue for the Paris Masters ATP Tour tennis tournament, and hosts the annual LNB All-Star Game basketball event and the Grand Slam Paris judo tournament. It is also used for many other sports events, such as table tennis, handball, basketball, boxing, gymnastics, track cycling and show jumping.

Since 1985, the arena has been hosting the annual Festival des Arts Martiaux.

POPB hosted the European gymnastics championship in 2000, the 1991 and 1996 FIBA EuroLeague Final Fours, and the FIBA EuroBasket championship in 1999, among others.

It also hosted the 2009–10 EuroLeague Final Four. It also hosted the Masters Karting Paris Bercy star race, from 1993 to 2001, and again in 2011. It was co-host of the 2017 IIHF World Championship and the FIBA Women's EuroBasket 2021.

The arena hosted the 2017 European League of Legends Championship Series Summer Finals and the 2019 League of Legends World Championship Finals.

On January 24, 2020, it hosted an NBA regular season game between the Milwaukee Bucks and Charlotte Hornets, who would be represented by Frenchman Nicolas Batum. The Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls are scheduled to play at the arena on January 19, 2023 during the 2022–23 NBA season.

The arena hosted France's first UFC event on 3 September 2022, for UFC Fight Night: Gane vs. Tuivasa.

The arena is set to be a venue for the 2024 Summer Olympics. It will host the artistic and trampoline gymnastics events as well as the basketball quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals.

It will also host the wheelchair basketball during the Paralympics.

## Participating countries

### Semi-final 1

South Korea, Gibraltar and the United Kingdom will vote in this semi-final. Qualifiers are marked in blue.

### Semi-final 2

Puerto Rico, France and Türkiye will vote in this semi-final. Qualifiers are marked in blue.