Manon and Julien (aka 12 Juin, Le Duo) are an extremely friendly couple who will take part to the French final with their positive entry “Peux-Tu Me Dire?” (Can you tell me?).  They kindly answered our questions, live from their beautiful Savoy region in the French Alps.

(translation by Gabriel)

“Bonjour à tous les deux!” and thank you for meeting us. Could you introduce yourself to our readers please?

We are Manon and Julien! Nice to meet you friends! And we also are a couple, in real life and on stage, that’s what we say!

It may sound like a silly question, but how did you come up with that name “21 juin, le duo” (June 21st, the duet)? Is it a reference to World Music day (a French creationby the way), to the first day of Summer, to another special event?

Manon: “21 juin le duo”, because when both started singing together, 4 years ago. We were looking for a band name, and we both met on a June 21^st. Julien was the musician who came for the music fest I was organizing at the edge of the Lac d’Annecy.

Julien: I was coming to animate the gig so I told myself what if I try to animate Manon as well.

Manon: And as I wanted him to remember the date of our meeting…I got him!

Julien: I have no excuse indeed! Actually, 21^st June, date of our anniversary, and besides it’s Summer’s day, for some solar music, so it fitted a lot. It’s the longest day of the year, so we have time to see each other and it’s also World Music Day! [June 21st, know in France as “Fête de la Musique”, was created by France in the 1980 and has now become a global celebration, Ed.].

You’re often compared to the “3 Cafés Gourmands” [a new band who got extremely popular in France last year with their positive tracks, Ed.]. What is your reaction?

Oh yeaaaaah! Oh yes of course, “3 Cafés Gourmands” are our dear puppies, because they invited us on their Zénith tour. There were 14 dates, 14 magic dates in our minds, with Olympia as well, incredible, Belgium etc… “3 Cafés Gourmands” really are authentic and sincere people both on stage and in real life, warm, kind, funny and awesome musicians so we like them a lot. We are very grateful for the chance they gave us and besides we aren’t really remote on a musical plan, we make the same music, popular, party, with positive messages, so it’s a very pleasant comparison!

How did you end up on the list of finalists for “Eurovision France: C’est Vous Qui Décidez!”?

We still can’t believe we qualified, we don’t really realize yet. It’s a big satisfaction for us for real, it’s a crazy adventure. Actually we’ve been secretly dreaming about Eurovision for 2-3 years now, our qualification went through several steps. In a first time we sent our song to France Télévisions’ teams, and then they shortlisted some candidates and invited them to an audition. It was very intense, it was in Paris, and we travelled to the capital city especially for this. By the way we’re building a short video as when we came to Paris, we filmed ourselves iduring rehearsals, in the big moments, the fears, the joys etc, so this video will be shortly released on our social networks, so check it out! So following this ausition, we got called to be told we were shortlisted among the 12 final acts. Wewere thrilled! We partied with Manon to celebrate this, only the two of us obviously  cause we couldn’t make a party. So you’ll see all the details of this casting in this little video we’ll publish soon!

Who is the team who created “Peux-Tu Me Dire?”?

“Peux-Tu Me Dire?” is a song we both wrote, and also with a co-composer called Jan Orsi (cheers to him if he watches us). It’s a song we wrote when we were in the nature. I remember the three of us were together and we were contemplating mountains and we told ourselves “any song idea?”. It went like this. We feel that we have to talk about that, about nature, we have to raise questions about the topic, but we wanted to do it in a positive way, not in a dark and moralizing way. We wanted something catchy, to unite, that we would sing altogether to give us strength and so on!

What is the message f your song?

This song has a special place in our hearts because it’s true that we make a whole lot of catchy and positive songs, what we like to make, our leitmotiv, and when we are artists, it’s a great opportunity to emphasize some topics, and here the environmental question is very important to us because Manon has been living at the mountains for about 20 years, and when we met we went to Paris, but I convinced Julien to come to the mountains, and we got aware that a lot of things had changed in our environment and then this song holds a very strong message that is earnest, but we also made a sort of party out of it, without value judgment, on the contrary we’re asking a real question here and we invite everybody to answer it with us and think about all that!

Do you consider yourself as Eurovision fans?

Well, Eurovision is a program we’ve been following for a long time, since we’re little kids, with our parents and family, and I think it’s cool to discover all those musical universes, rock-metal bands for example, with astonishing stagings, pop, acoustic stuff… It’s super cool to discover all those songs to see how various music is,. Netta’s song is our all-time fav (start singing it along). Madame Monsieur too, of course, we ove them. It’s obvious we have a special connection to them: we’re also a couple, we make music together, and we admire their work a lot. their music is subtle, class, efficient, well-composed. Cheers to them!

Do you have a special message for our readers?

Well, if this year, you want an incredible party and dance altogether, it would please us a lot! We count on you dear friends. Thanks for your support and this interview!

Thank you, and let me wish you the very best of luck: Bonne chance!

If Manon and Julien are your choice for France, let us know in our poll:

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Here is their interview, a good way to practice your French!