Coincidentally, the meeting with the Ladaniva duo, who represent Armenia at Eurovision, took place in a restaurant in the capital, Yerevan, on April 24. This day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide between 1915 and 1918 is a public holiday and the streets are full. The group’s singer, Jaklin Baghdasaryan, 28, has to take a selfie every 5 meters. This is the lot, in the country, of a candidacy for Eurovision. The audiences for the competition, which will take place this year from May 7 to 11, are stratospheric: 70% of viewers in this small country of three million inhabitants watch the final each year, according to the public channel Armenia 1.
Before heading to Malmö, Sweden, where the sixty-eighth edition of the competition is being held, Ladaniva goes on television sets. The Armenians have never been higher than fourth place and believe in him. The duo barely has time to play. In the middle of an outfit fitting session, Frenchman Louis Thomas, a 38-year-old multi-instrumentalist, grabs a guitar. His partner hums, in Armenian but also in French. No other Eurovision candidate, apart from Slimane, will be so French. The Franco-Armenian duo actually lives in Lille.
We can also expect French votes for the title they will perform, Jako, nickname of the singer. In the competition, France and Armenia have always been able to count on each other. At the end of a year of sustained relations between Yerevan and Paris, this edition should be no exception. Since the lightning recapture of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave by Azerbaijan in September 2023 and the forced exile of its one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, diplomatic visits have followed one another. The two countries even signed a military agreement at the end of February, with an arms contract at stake.
“We are pacifists”
These geopolitical questions are the only area on which Ladaniva does not dare to venture. The competition rules are clear: the event must be “apolitical”. However, Armenia, in conflict with its Azerbaijani neighbor for more than thirty years, has already deviated from this rule. In 2016, singer Iveta Moukoutchian, for example, brought out a Nagorno-Karabakh separatist flag on stage. Earlier, in 2012, Yerevan refused to send a contestant to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan where Eurovision was held. In 2009, Azerbaijani television was fined for censoring the Armenian performance. Forty-three Azerbaijanis had nevertheless voted for Armenia: all were questioned by the police of their country.
You have 50.71% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
