Amour, amour: Luxembourg's Eurovision Decline Signal

MAY 15 1987 · 12:05

Plastic Bertrand · "Amour, amour" · Luxembourg · 1987 Placement: 21st · Score: 4 · Language: French · Composers: Thierry Plas, Alain Lubrano · Venue: Palais du Centenaire · Host: Brussels, Belgium · Type: performance innovation · Broadcast: color crt On May 9, 1987, at the Palais du Centenaire in Brussels — Belgium's first Eurovision as host after Sandra Kim's 1986 victory — Luxembourg's entry arrived in the unexpected shape of the Belgian punk-pop star Plastic Bertrand. Bertrand, born Roger Jouret in Brussels, had been internationally famous since 1977 for 'Ça plane pour moi' — one of the most commercially successful French-language punk singles of its decade. His 1987 Eurovision selection by RTL on behalf of Luxembourg was already unusual: by this period Luxembourg's Eurovision delegation, traditionally one of the contest's most successful with five victories between 1961 and 1983, was openly hiring established foreign artists from larger French-speaking markets to fill its national slot. 'Amour, amour' was an uptempo synthpop-leaning track. Bertrand's performance was characteristically Plastic Bertrand: deliberately cartoonish energy, exaggerated new-wave choreography, a clearly ironic relationship to Eurovision conventions. European juries were unmoved. Luxembourg finished twenty-first of twenty-two with four points — the country's worst Eurovision result to that point and, in retrospect, a clear signal of the decline that would lead to Luxembourg's withdrawal from Eurovision after 1993. Context Eurovision 1987 was the last Eurovision Luxembourg would participate in with genuine ambition of winning. The Grand Duchy's public broadcaster, CLT-owned RTL, had been outsourcing Luxembourg's Eurovision selection to French and Belgian acts for roughly a decade. Legacy 'Amour, amour' is now widely remembered as the decline-signal moment for Luxembourg at Eurovision. Luxembourg would participate through 1993 and then withdraw from the contest for thirty-one years, returning only in 2024. Mythology Plastic Bertrand's 1987 is sometimes remembered as a full nul-points finish; it received four points. His 'Ça plane pour moi' vocal-attribution controversy was widely reported but is not always acknowledged in Eurovision retrospectives.