Eve Gilles, Miss Nord-Pas-de-Calais, elected Miss France 2024

The new “beauty queen” succeeds Indira Ampiot, Miss Guadeloupe.

Miss Nord-Pas-de-Calais was elected Miss France 2024, Saturday December 16 in Dijon. Originally from Dunkirk, Eve Gilles, 20, made her candidacy the symbol of “diversity” feminine. “No one should tell you who you are.”she declared during the beauty contest, claiming her short hair as a difference compared to the other Misses, all with long hair.

The new “beauty queen”, who succeeds Indira Ampiot, Miss Guadeloupe, was elected by viewers, for half of the rating, and by a jury of seven women, for the other half. The young woman was selected after a big “show”, in the words of Jean-Pierre Foucault, 76 years old and presenter since 1995.

The competition comes after a conviction by the Lille court on Tuesday of the TF1 subsidiary, e-TF1, and the company Endemol which then managed the Miss France Company. The cause was the broadcast to nearly eight million viewers of images of two regional Misses, filmed bare-chested on December 15, 2018, by a camera installed without their knowledge. The organizers had apologized for this “hiccup” but the hitch adds to the controversy surrounding the beauty contest which, despite some reforms, remains highly criticized.

Symbol of success or misogynistic election?

Now a hundred years old, Miss France is a symbol of “success”assures the Miss France Society. “It’s a social elevator”affirms its president Alexia Laroche-Joubert, evoking Misses who have become “businesswomen, doctors or even directors”. The criteria were furthermore “modernized”, she assures. A candidate now has no age limit and can be transgender, married, mother… and even tattooed.

This “evolution” is, however, still far from satisfying feminists. “It’s ‘feminist-washing’: we remain in a very misogynistic election”, estimates Mélinda Bizri, of the Human Rights League in Dijon, who calls for a boycott of the ceremony with many other associations. “Women abuse themselves all their lives to achieve these phantasmagorical criteria, according to patterns that take a very long time to deconstruct”she emphasizes.