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Switzerland Wins Eurovision, as Protests Give Way to Spectacle
The nonbinary singer Nemo won the high-camp contest, during a night that included pro-Palestinian demonstrations outside the arena and fireworks onstage.
![Onstage, a person in a pink outfit holds a glass trophy in the shape of a microphone aloft and smiles broadly, while a person in a skin colored outfit touches their chest.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/05/11/multimedia/11eurovision-ledeall5-bghf/11eurovision-ledeall5-bghf-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
The run-up to this Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest final in Malmo, Sweden, was unusually tense and anguished, with months of protests over Israel’s involvement in the competition, a contestant suspended just hours before the show began and confrontations between the police and pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside the arena on the night.
But when the final began, the uproar swiftly disappeared. Instead of protests and outrage, there was the usual high-camp spectacle, featuring singers emoting about lost loves, near-naked dancers and, at one point, a performer climbing out of a giant egg.
At the end of the four-hour show, Nemo, representing Switzerland, won with “The Code,” a catchy track in which the nonbinary performer rapped and sang operatically about their journey to realizing their identity. “I went to hell and back/To find myself on track,” Nemo sang in the chorus: “Now, I found paradise/I broke the code.”
The performance was delivered while Nemo, whose real name is Nemo Mettler and who uses they/them pronouns, balanced on a huge spinning disc.
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