Paris in July: French-ish songs

Every year as part of Paris in July, I like to share some music. Generally I choose songs with the word Paris in the title but I have used lots of them before so only have more obscure songs available, so I am changing it up a little bit.

Recently I read French Rhapsody by Antoine Laurain, and there was quite a bit about music in the 1980s. Originally I thought it was going to be a book about music and nostalgia but it ended up being quite political but it did inspire my first selection for my post today.

For my post today, I am starting with one of the songs that was mentioned in the book as a French song that made it big around the world. I then thought about other modern songs that would fit (kind of) into this category

Ça plane pour moi by Plastic Bertrand (1977) - In the book French Rhapsody, we follow some of the members of a cold wave rock band who never made it. This song was referenced quite a few times in the book. Apparently this song has had a bit of controversy around it around whether the singer actually sang it. Interestingly, Plastic Bertrand (not his real name) was from Belgium but he had a French father. 

Joe Le Taxi by Vanessa Paradiso (1987) - When I thought about other songs that made it big around the world this one came to mind.  I didn't realise that she was so young when she recorded it though! Apparently she is still touring as well.

Blue by Eiffel 65 (1997) - Fast forward another 10 years and this song was everywhere. It certainly got a lot of airplay in Britain where I was living at the time! Turns out Eiffel 65 are Italian but with a band name like that I couldn't leave them out!

Aux arbres citoyens by Yannick Noah (2007) - It was actually a coincidence that the first three songs I have shared were released in 1977, 1987 and 1997, so I thought it would be fitting to choose a song from 2007 as my next choice. When I looked at the list though, there wasn't really any particular song that jumped out at me. However, I was curious to see that Yannick Noah had a hit in that year and this song was Song of the Year. Yes, that is the same Yannick Noah who was a successful tennis player, but he looks every inch the rock star in this video!

Makeba by Jain (2017) - When I looked at the list of French hits for 2017 this was the one that jumped out at me as being a song I was familiar with, but that may well be because it had a resurgence in the last couple of years after being used in a couple of ads.

Do you have a favourite French-ish song?