This is an extremely rare case: Eve Gilles, a young woman with short hair, was elected Miss France 2024, in front of 5,000 people in Dijon, during the evening program broadcast by TF1, Saturday December 16.
Originally from Dunkirk, Eve Gilles, 20, made her candidacy the symbol of female “diversity”. “No one should dictate who you are,” she declared on stage, claiming her short-cut hair as a difference from the other Misses, all with long hair.
The new “beauty queen”, who succeeds Indira Ampiot, Miss France 2023, was elected by viewers, for half of the rating, and by a jury of seven women, for the other half.
She was selected at the end of a big “show”, in the words of Jean-Pierre Foucault, 76 years old and presenter since 1995. She is ahead of Miss Guyana, designated first runner-up.
Each ceremony counts among the highest audiences on TF1 (7.1 million viewers last year). This 94th edition, however, comes after a conviction by the Lille court on Tuesday, of the TF1 subsidiary, e-TF1, and the company Endemol which then headed the Miss France Company. The cause was the broadcast to nearly 8 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 snag adds to the controversy surrounding the beauty contest which, despite some reforms, remains highly criticized.
Tribute to Geneviève de Fontenay
Now a hundred years old, Miss France 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 was paid to her on Saturday evening, casting a modest veil over the stormy relations she had with the current Miss organization.
