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Stockholm Revisited Part Fourteen: Focus on Frans (Sweden)

02 September 2016 at 19:00 CEST
In the final part of our Stockholm Revisited series we focus on Frans, the 17 year old singer who represented the home team, Sweden, in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest with the song If I Were Sorry. 

In March, Frans convincingly won the Swedish national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, Melodifestivalen, and would go on to represent Sweden on home ground in May. He is the youngest singer to win the contest since Carola in 1983.

In recent years Sweden has fared well in the Eurovision Song Contest, achieving four top five placings in the last five years, including two victories in 2012 and 2015. After Frans was selected, Sweden was immediately installed as a favourite in the betting odds and hopes were high of a good placing for If I Were Sorry in the Grand Final. 

After a strong jury vote and an even stronger vote from the public, Sweden finished in 5th place. In a contest where the staging of entries is becoming ever more complex, Frans showed that a simple song and performance can still have impact.  

Melodifestivalen is the biggest show of the year in Sweden. Over the coming months the acts competing for the right to represent Sweden in the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest will be revealed by Swedish broadcaster SVT.