X Factor (French TV series)

X Factor is a Franco-Belgian television music talent show to find new singing talent after public auditions, intermediate tests, and live shows. The first season was broadcast on Mondays, from September to December 2009, on W9 and RTL-TVI.
The second and final season was broadcast on Tuesdays, from March to June 2011, on M6 and RTL-TVI.

WWW x-factor.m6.fr

Series overview

Contestant in "Alain Lanty"

Contestant in "Julie Zenatti"

Contestant in "Marc Cerrone"

Contestant in "Henri Padovani"

Contestant in "Oliver Schultheis"

Contestant in "Christophe Willem"

Contestant in "Véronic DiCaire"

Judges' categories and their contestants

In each season, each judge is allocated a category to mentor and chooses three acts to progress to the live shows. This table shows, for each season, which category each judge was allocated and which acts he or she put through to the live shows.
Key:

Season	Alain Lanty	Marc Cerrone	Julie Zenatti	style="width:13%;" rowspan="2"
1	Over 25's Sébastien Annie Cécile	Groups Basilic Character Soul Gauthier Dymon & Flo	16-24's Marie Cyrielle Guillaume	-
Season	Olivier Schultheis	Christophe Willem	Véronic Dicaire	Henry Padovani
2	Girls Marina D'Amico Sarah Manesse Bérénice Schleret	Over 25's Maryvette Lair Vincent Léoty Cécile Couderc	Boys Matthew Raymond-Barker Florian Giustiniani Raphaël Herrerias	Groups 2nde Nature Oméga Twem

Season 1 (2009)

The first season of the show aired from September to December 2009 and the winner was 26-year-old Sébastien Agius from the "Over 25" category. The judges were Alain Lanty, Julie Zenatti and Marc Cerrone.

Contestants

The top 9 acts were confirmed as follows:
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Results summary

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Season 2 (2011)

Based on a generally good public reception, and after some speculations, X Factor came back for a second season in March 2011 on M6, in place of Nouvelle Star, the French Pop Idol, programmed on M6 since 7 years after audience figures deteriorated for Star
Frédéric de Vincelles, general manager of W9, declared that even though all targeted goals were not attained in season 1, the program had still realised some respectable audience figures for the chain, making it the biggest grossing program for the network in 2009.

Differences with first season

First season was aired on a small TV channel with limited means. This is not the case with the second season, as the program tries to emulate the successful British edition.
For this second season, M6 assigned 4 artists to be part of the jury: Christophe Willem, Véronic Dicaire, Olivier Schultheis and Henry Padovani. All judges are new and replace the old set of three judges Marc Cerrone, Alain Lanty and Julie Zenatti.
Auditions were held in major French theatres, in public.
The bootcamp lasted for days and included 3 events: vocal duels, choreography and solos on orchestra-band.
Two to three French or international popstars are invited each week during liveshows.
During shows, a second program, named "F@n Factor: Le Prime", is broadcast on the internet to show the backstage and see preparation of candidates and their reactions after singing. So, there isn't an after-show as Xtra Factor.
Every day, a short program, named "F@n Factor: Le Mag", is broadcast on the internet to show repetitions of candidates with their coaches, and their daily activities.

Judges and hosts

For this second season, judges of the first season are not renewed. Also, for the first time, there are four judges :

Christophe Willem – French singer and songwriter. He sang in a gospel choir and won the fourth edition of Nouvelle Star in 2006. He sold over 2 million albums and was nominated several times in NRJ Music Awards and Victoires de la Musique.
Olivier Schultheis – French conductor, musician and songwriter. He discovered Christophe Maé and composed for Hélène Ségara, Thierry Amiel, Christophe Willem and for musicals and wrote soundtracks for films. He was also a producer of Nouvelle Star.
Véronic DiCaire - Franco-Ontarian singer and imitator. She was discovered by Céline Dion and René Angélil and was renowned for her imitations of many voices including Céline Dion, Tina Turner, Lynda Lemay, Lara Fabian, Isabelle Boulay, Christina Aguilera, Cyndi Lauper, Vanessa Paradis and others. She released two albums in 2002 and 2005.
Henry Padovani – Corsican songwriter, guitarist and manager. He is the founding member of The Police with Stewart Copeland but Sting fired him in favour of Andy Summers. He was the director of IRS Records, where he promoted many groups such as R.E.M., The Fleshtones, The Cramps, and The Bangles. He was also the manager of Zucchero and I Muvrini.

To present the show, M6 selected Sandrine Corman for the liveshows and early stages and Jérôme Anthony for F@n Factor and early stages.

Chronology of the early stages

Preselections:
* 2 November 2010 in Nice, Lyon and Strasbourg
* 4 November 2010 in Marseille, Lille and Clermont-Ferrand
* 6 November 2010 in Montpellier, Rennes and Brussels
* 8 November 2010 in Toulouse
* 9–10 November 2010 in Paris
Auditions:

Audition city	Dates	Venue
Lille	2–3 December 2010	Lille Grand Palais
Lyon	9 December 2010	Cité-Centre de Congrès de Lyon
Montpellier	13–14 December 2010	Zénith Sud
Paris	3-4-5–6 January 2011	Studio 204 - Plaine Saint-Denis

'Bootcamp' : 25-26-27–28 January 2011 in Palais des Sports (Paris).

Judges' Houses

Top 24 acts were chosen with six in each of the four category. The judges added a 25th contestant in the Groups category making the contestants for the Groups seven instead of six. The newly created group was named "Seconde Nature" and included 5 candidates who had applied for the "Boys" category but had failed to qualify individually to the Top 24, but were deemed talented enough to be given a second chance by performing as part of a band in the Groups category.

Judge	Category	Location	Assistants	Acts eliminated
DiCaire	Boys	Quebec	Roch Voisine.	Sofiane Boncoeur, Slimane Nebchi, Michael Picquerey
Willem	Over 25s	London	Zaho	Lilou Bourial, Christophe Gilard, Barry Johnson
Schultheis	Girls	Morocco	Alain Chamfort	Ana Dupont, Charlène Gervais, Audrey Passani
Padovani	Groups	French Perigord	Sharleen Spiteri	Arcanes, New Style Project, Presteej, Swalk

Contestants

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Results summary

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