The Miss France 2024 pageant received backlash for being “woke” after it announced “androgynous” contestant as the winner.
Eve Gilles, 20, from Nord-Pas-de-Calais in northern France, was crowned winner during the show on Saturday night in Dijon.
Ms Gilles, sporting a pixie cut, told Le Monde: "We’re used to seeing beautiful Misses with long hair, but I chose an androgynous look with short hair.
"No one should dictate who you are…every woman is different, we’re all unique."
Miss France’s score was split 50/50 between the public and a judge panel of seven women, putting her in only third place in the public vote.
Viewers criticised her victory and complaints flooded social media, many slamming the judge panel as “woke.”
One user wrote “Making people believe that the most beautiful woman in France looks like a man is woke.”
Another said: “Miss France is no longer a beauty contest but a woke contest which is based on inclusiveness.”
Many people quickly came to her defence, calling the woke accusations “ridiculous.”
One user wrote: “The subject this morning is really to be outraged that Miss France 2024 has short hair...? And that would be woke…? Are you serious people? Louise Brooks, Coco Chanel, Colette, Mistinguett… does that mean anything to you or are you completely uneducated?.”
"Maybe the new #MissFrance isn’t gorgeous in your eyes, but seeing wokeism in her because she has short hair.... It’s just ridiculous,” another user said.
Fabien Roussel, national secretary of the French Communist Party, also came to her defence, writing on X: “Support for Eve Gilles, elected Miss France, who is already suffering the violence of a society which does not accept that women define themselves in all their diversity.”
Ms Gilles victory comes less than a week after the French broadcaster TF1 and TV production house Endemolto have been ordered to compensate two contestants after images of their breasts made it on air.
The pageant show has tried to “modernise” itself in recent years by relaxing the age limit and allowing transgender women to enter.
Critics still brand the show as “sexist” and call for its boycott.
Violaine de Filippis, spokesperson for Dare Feminism! Association said Miss France is “still just as sexist in the way it classifies women according to beauty criteria.”
