The French participating broadcaster, France Télévision, organised the national final Eurovision 2000: la sélection in order to select its entry for the contest.

They have also finished second four times, with "La Belle Amour" by Paule Desjardins in 1957, "Un, deux, trois" by Catherine Ferry in 1976, "White and Black Blues" by Joëlle Ursull in 1990, and "C'est le dernier qui a parlé qui a raison" by Amina in 1991, who lost out to Sweden's "Fångad av en stormvind" by Carola in a tie-break.

In 1999, they finished in nineteenth place with the song "Je veux donner ma voix" performed by Nayah.

The competition took place on 15 February 2000 at the L'Olympia in Paris, hosted by Julien Lepers and Karen Cheryl and was broadcast on France 3.

[5] Auditions featuring entries shortlisted from the received submissions took place at the Headquarters of France 3 in Paris where a three-member selection committee consisting of Nathalie André (producer), Catherine Régnier (M6 music programmer) and Fabrice Ferment (Head of Delegation for France at the Eurovision Song Contest) selected 20 entries for the next stage, which took place on 6 January 2000 and involved an alternate committee consisting of representatives of France 3 that finalised the 14 entries to compete in the national final.

Fourteen entries competed and the winner, "On aura le ciel" performed by Sofia Mestari, was selected by the combination of public televoting (50%) and a jury panel (50%).

The jury panel included Marie Myriam and Patrick Fiori who represented France in the 1977 and 1993 Contest respectively.