Les Enfoirés

Founded by the comedian Coluche, Les Enfoirés are a group of French celebrities who assemble each year for a charity concert tour. The concerts, which began in 1986, are immensely popular and generally result in chart-topping releases.

French comedian Coluche (born October 28, 1944; died June 19, 1986) founded Les Enfoirés and hosted the original charity concert, which aired on television on January 26, 1986, and featured five other celebrities: Jean-Jacques Goldman (a staple of Les Enfoirés, performing each and every year), Yves Montand, Nathalie Baye, Michel Platini, and Michel Drucker. After Coluche died in a motorcycle accident a half-year later, his widow, Véronique Colucci, organized an annual charity concert held on behalf of his foundation, Les Restos du Coeur. The second annual concert was aired on television on December 1, 1987, and a couple years later, the concert expanded to a tour of France, performing in various cities and culminating with a television special on January 5, 1990. This initial concert tour became the subject of the first Enfoirés album release, Tournée d'Enfoirés (1990), which featured performances by Goldman, Michel Sardou, Eddy Mitchell, Véronique Sanson, and Johnny Hallyday. Throughout the '90s, Les Enfoirés limited themselves to one-off concert television specials each year that were later released on album: La Soirée des Enfoirés à l'Opéra (1992), Les Enfoirés Chantent Starmania (1993), Les Enfoirés au Grand Rex (1994), Les Enfoirés à l'Opéra Comique (1995), La Soirée des Enfoirés (1996), Le Zénith des Enfoirés (1997), Enfoirés en Coeur (1998), and Dernière Édition Avant l'An 2000 (1999).

After the turn of the century, Les Enfoirés mounted short promotional tours of France in addition to television specials, and the accompanying album releases accordingly proved more popular, generally topping the French charts each year, starting with Enfoirés en 2000 (2000). Recorded during the show at Le Zénith in Nantes in January 2007, La Caravane des Enfoirés became one of their biggest hits to date, going three times platinum in France. The run of chart-toppers continued in the 2010s. Each year brought a new release, and each hit number one, from 2010: Les Enfoirés... La Crise de Nerfs! to 2016: Au Rendez-vous Des Enfoirés. ~ Jason Birchmeier