Did you know ? Since 2022, Miss France candidates have benefited froman employment contract as well as a salary for the last two days of preparation and election day. So, if they are not paid for the preparation trip, which took place this year in Guyana, they still receive a small amount for the “final sprint”. However, this new measure, which is more in line with the requirements of labor law, is not to everyone’s taste. And for good reason ! Beauty queens are in fact paid… at the hourly minimum wage. Only seven and a few euros per hour, or 84 euros per day (during which they are mobilized from noon to midnight, according to information from the Parisian). This pay, of €252 in total, is the subject of criticism. Indeed, the Misses participate in a huge show which mobilizes more than 7 million viewers. During the evening broadcast live, the TF1 channel “billed advertisers 114,000 euros gross per 30-second ad spot”, according to our colleagues. A gap which does not bother certain regional Misses, who assure that“you don’t sign up for Miss France for the money.” For others, however, the hectic pace of preparation, the pressure put on their shoulders and the long hours of rehearsals become “of exploitation“.
“We don’t do Miss France for the salary”
Sylvie Tellier, the former director of the Miss France company, defended this decision on the set of C à Vous, Tuesday February 1, 2022. She did not hesitate to recall that previously, the candidates were not paid at all. “Production has evolved so much that it became professional, hence the employment contract“, explained the former general director of Miss France. But is this amount enough? Sylvie Teller wants to put things into perspective: “Be careful not to devalue people who are paid the minimum wage, because there are many of them. I don’t think we do Miss France for the salary, we do Miss France to benefit from an exceptional springboard, to live a dream“, she added. She also reminds us that this salary is new: “it allowed young women to be paid for three days, before that didn’t exist“. Diane Leyre, elected Miss France 2022, for her part supported this decision: “Miss France is a dream. Does a dream have a price? No. The love of the French did not take either“, she assured, adding that she herself had not even looked at the amount of her pay on the contract. As for Geneviève de Fontenay, emblematic figure of the Miss France competition for more than 50 years, she declared in 2021 at the microphone of Sud Radio which she estimated that the establishment of employment contracts for candidates was “a provocation”.
Sources:
“It’s exploitation”: in the Miss France competition, beauty queens paid like extras – The Parisian