The Eurovision Song Contest Final 2023 was full of the usual over-the-top thrills, fabulous music and – sadly – disappointments.
One act who seemed to not take their lacklustre final result well was France’s act, La Zarra.
Her song Évidemment had been tipped as one of the favourites ahead of Sunday’s show, but the final leader board was dominated by Sweden’s returning winning act Loreen and Finland’s Käärijä, who finished the night on a whopping 583 and 526 points each, respectively.
These massive scores left the rest of the competing countries far behind in their wake.
While Loreen had been popular with the juries voting in each country, France had managed 54 points.
However, La Zarra and her fans were clearly expecting a significant boost when the public votes were announced and added to each country’s jury total for the final tally.
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Although it’s not uncommon for the most popular acts to receive 200 to 300 more points at this stage, France received a modest boost of 50, leaving her with 104 overall.
As the points were announced, the camera panned to the Canadian singer-songwriter, 35, who looked rather unimpressed as she found the camera and shrugged, throwing one had up as her team mate shook her head in disbelief before clapping.
While the arena provided loud boos over the result too, La Zarra was then seen spreading the fingers of her right hand out and pointing the middle finger down before turning her hand over and pointing her middle finger upwards.
Many fans enjoyed what seemed like an unvarnished reaction, with one commenting: ‘La Zarra giving Eurovision the finger is honestly a mood right now.’
‘La Zarra flipping off the audience on live TV is a mood after seeing that leader board lmfao i genuinely thought France could win [sic],’ added another.
‘This was so iconic from La Zarra. She knew she’d been robbed,’ posted someone else on Twitter.
However, the singer later insisted her gesture had been misconstrued.
‘Although I represent France, I also have a double culture,’ the Quebec-born star – whose parents are Moroccan – told BFMTV.
‘It’s not a negative gesture, on the contrary, it’s just a gesture of disappointment that we use between friends. Afterwards, I can understand that overseas it is considered another gesture.’
Once all the points had been announced, France ended up placing 16th out of 26 countries in the final.
Other disappointments of the night included the UK’s own Mae Muller finishing second from last with 24 points.
Taking to Twitter graciously in the aftermath, she wrote: ‘I just want to say thank u x.
‘I know i joke a lot but we really put our all into the last few months, not the result we hoped for but so proud of everyone & what we achieved on this journey.
‘Congrats to all the countries, I’ll never forget this journey and I love you all.
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