Miss Nord-Pas-de-Calais chosen as Miss France 2024: Who is Eve Gilles? (pictures)

Eve Gilles, 20, originally from Dunkirk, turned her candidacy into a symbol of female “diversity”. “Don’t let anyone dictate who you are,” she declared during the beauty pageant, distinguishing herself from the other misses with her short-cut hair, long hair.

Indira Ampiot, the new “Beauty Queen” succeeding Miss Guadalupe, was chosen by the audience for half of the ratings and a seven-woman jury for the other half.

Eve Gilles, originally from the village of Quadibre near Dunkirk, pledged to “defend the values ​​of strong women”. “We experience body shaming every day and it’s okay. We all have our flaws. Every woman is different, we’re all unique,” she explained at a press conference. The new Miss France, a second-year math and computer science student, has not made clear her stance on the “beauty” pageant she entered, widely contested by feminists.

“Maybe the new #MissFrance isn’t the best in your eyes, but seeing her as a wok because she has short hair….it’s ridiculous,” said a fan of the new Miss.

“Eve Gilles is the new Miss France 2024 and your malicious and useless criticism won’t change that, she’s classy,” says another on X.

Her short, brown hair and dark complexion have earned the new Miss France comparisons to celebrities such as American actress Halle Berry, model Linda Evangelista, Spanish actress Ursula Carpero or “old fashion”. Rihanna”, as one internet user put it.

However, the competition comes after a Lille court conviction on Tuesday against TF1 subsidiary e-TF1 and Endemol, which managed Miss France’s company. On December 15, 2018, images of two regional misses, taken bare-chested, were broadcast to nearly eight million viewers by a camera installed without their knowledge.

Organizers apologized for the “hiccup”, but despite some reforms, the disruption adds to the controversy surrounding the much-criticised beauty pageant.

Now a hundred years old, Miss France is a symbol of “victory,” the Miss France Society asserts. “It’s a social elevator,” says its president, Alexia Laroche-Joubert, referring to misses who are “businesswomen, doctors or directors.” The criteria have also been “modernised”, he assures. A candidate now has no age limit and can be transgender, married, a mother… and even tattooed. Only one trans candidate has come so far. She lost the Miss Paris election in 2022.

These small revolutions made Genevieve de Fonte, a historical figure, shake her famous hat in the beauty pageant. Having died in August at the age of 90, a tribute will be held Saturday evening, casting a modest veil over his stormy relationship with the current Miss organization.

However, this “evolution” is still far from satisfying feminists. “It’s a ‘feminist wash’: we’re in a very misogynistic election,” said Melinda Bisri of the Human Rights League in Dijon, who, along with several other associations, has called for a boycott of the ceremony. “Women abuse themselves throughout their lives to achieve these imaginary benchmarks, according to patterns that take a long time to rebuild,” she asserts.

“Miss France is still sexist in her policy of classifying women based on beauty criteria,” says Violine de Phillipis, spokeswoman for Dare Feminism!

However, each festival counts as a huge audience on TF1 (7.1 million viewers last year).

Miss Evening “is always successful because it is primarily entertainment,” Virginie Spies, a media analyst at the University of Avignon, explains to AFP.

But part of this success is due to what Ms. Spies defines as “hate-seeing,” that is, “seeing things we don’t necessarily appreciate in order to criticize.”