Contenders for the title of Miss France 2024, December 16, 2023 in Dijon (AFP / ARNAUD FINISTRE)
“It’s a fairy tale”: 5,000 fans attended the Miss France ceremony on Saturday evening in Dijon, brushing aside accusations of a “sexist” competition, further reinforced by a recent court conviction for images of candidates filmed topless in 2018.
“It makes me dream! Since I was little, I have not missed a single ceremony,” says Emma from Dijon, 22, who came with her most beautiful sequined dress to finally attend the competition in her city, rather than simply watching it on TF1. “The Misses are incredibly lucky. It’s a fairy tale,” exclaims her friend, Sylvie, 23, unable to sit still in her seat in the Zénith auditorium.
Promising a great “show”, in the words of Jean-Pierre Foucault, 76 years old and presenter since 1995, the Misses began the show with a parade in rhinestone bodysuits, revealing their model legs widely.
Contenders for the title of Miss France 2024 during the ceremony broadcast on TF1, December 16, 2023 in Dijon (AFP / ARNAUD FINISTRE)
At the same time, the former Miss France came down on stage in a heart-shaped chair, in a feathered dress worthy of Crazy Horse, to the screams of the crowd, very feminine and young.
To succeed Indira Ampiot, Miss Guadeloupe, fifteen finalists, out of thirty candidates, will be decided by the viewers, for half of the score, and by a jury of seven women, for the other half.
The competition, however, 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.
Now a hundred years old, the competition is a symbol of “success”, assures the Miss France Society. “It’s a social elevator,” says its president Alexia Laroche-Joubert, referring to Misses who have become “businesswomen, doctors or even directors”.
The criteria have also been “modernized”, she assures. A candidate now has no age limit and can be transgender, married, mother… and even tattooed.
Only one trans candidate has so far come forward. She failed in the Miss Paris election in 2022.
These small revolutions caused the famous hat of Geneviève de Fontenay, a historic figure in the beauty contest, to wobble. Having died in August at the age of 90, a tribute will be paid to her on Saturday evening, casting a modest veil over the stormy relations she had with the current Miss organization.
– “Hate-Watching” –
This “evolution” is, however, still far from satisfying feminists. “It’s ‘feminist-washing’: we remain in a very misogynistic election,” said Mélinda Bizri, of the Human Rights League in Dijon, who is calling 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.
“Miss France is still just as sexist in the principle of classifying women based on beauty criteria,” adds Violaine de Filippis, spokesperson for Dare to Feminism!
However, each ceremony counts among the highest audiences on TF1 (7.1 million viewers last year).
The Miss evening “is always a success because it is first and foremost entertainment”, explains Virginie Spies, media analyst at the University of Avignon, to AFP.
But this success is partly due to “hate-watching”, that is to say “watching what we do not necessarily appreciate in order to be able to criticize it”, defines Ms. Spies.
It’s “a popular culture”, defended the PS mayor of Dijon François Rebsamen, during the municipal council of September 25, where the arrival of the Misses was strongly criticized.
“This show conveys a still quite sexist image of women, not only to the attention of little girls and teenage spectators, but also to the attention of little boys and teenage spectators,” denounced the municipal assistant for Gender equality, Kildine Bataille (presidential majority).