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After decades of embarrassment with its Eurovision entries, France has come up with a controversial wheeze to earn beaucoup de points in next month’s contest. The country famous for its fierce pride in the native tongue is to enter a song written almost entirely in English for the first time.

The decision by the state television network has sparked an outcry, provoking one MP to demand an explanation from the Culture Minister.

The French entrant is Sébastien Tellier, 33, a singer-composer with caveman looks and a devotion to erotic subjects. His mix of electro with the kitsch music of 1970s porn films is not itself proving controversial — it is his song Divine, from the Sexuality album, that is causing a storm of protest.

Tellier, known as “the singing Chabal” because of his resemblance to the hulking rugby union player, said that he had tried French lyrics but they did not work as well. “The majority of songs that have won Eurovision, like Abba, have been in English,” he added. He has retained two French lines that translate as “You and I, like you know/How my heart gave way”.

This year’s contest is to be held in Belgrade on May 24. France last won in 1977 and often comes near last.

François-Michel Gonnot, 59, an MP for Mr Sarkozy’s conservative Union for a Popular Movement, has asked Christine Albanel, the Culture Minister, to explain the decision to parliament. “This choice shocks a lot of citizens who do not understand why France is thus giving up the defence of its language before hundreds of millions of television viewers,” he said.

The Defence of the French Language group said that France had once again bowed before the language of the “masters of the world”.

The move runs against President Sarkozy’s campaign to promote French abroad. Carla Bruni, his chanteuse wife, sang her last album entirely en anglais but her new album, due this spring, will contain no English.

French lyric-driven pop is thriving but English is also enjoying new popularity. The internet has given songs in English exposure that they have been denied on the air because of laws that restrict non-French songs to no more than 40 per cent of radio play time.

Julien Garnier, from a group called Hey Hey My My, said that French recording artists had nothing against French. “It’s just that writing for us is easier in English. In English it’s great to say, ‘Here comes the sun’ while ‘Voici le soleil’ is pretty poor in French.”

The veteran crooner Charles Aznavour summed up a common view on the merits of the languages. “French does lyrics; the Anglo-Saxons are better at the tune.”

Divine, by Sebastien Tellier

No no no no no no no
I’m looking for a band today
I see the Chivers anyway
Through my eyes
Oh oh oh
I . . . I’m alone in life to say
I love the Chivers anyway
’Cause Chivers look divine
Look away
They try to find the Milky Way
They love to drink it every day
No no no no no no no
Toi et moi, c’est comme tu sais
Comment mon coeur a succombé
You look fine
Oh oh oh
I . . . I’m alone in life to say
I love the Chivers anyway
’Cause Chivers look divine
Look away
They try to find the Milky Way
I’m . . . I’m alone in life to say
I love the Chivers anyway
In your eyes
Oh oh oh
I’m looking for a band today
I see the Chivers anyway
I’ll be a Chivers guy some day
In my mind

* Chivers is a slang term for a hip young musician

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