Courtesy of http://lucire.com
Conflicts in most countries over two beauty pageants might stem from the rivalry between Miss Universe and Miss World—and even then they are far and few between. But France’s new rivalry—dubbed la guerre des Miss—which has caught the attention of the media there, has a very different foundation.
France has a general acceptance of beauty pageants, and the Miss France competition gets strong ratings—some 40 per cent of the viewing audience.
Saturday’s crowning of the new Miss France, who takes over from Malika Ménard (left), is marked by the emergence of a rival pageant, called Miss Nationale, set up by Geneviève de Fontenay.
Mme de Fontenay had run the Miss France pageant since 1954, and sold the rights to reality TV house Endemol in 2002.
Although she remained connected to the pageant, de Fontenay has been battling the company since over what she sees is the attack on the dignity of the pageant.
She has instead created a new pageant founded on traditional values, battling what she sees is a moral decline in society.
While Miss France 2011 will enjoy live national television coverage on TF1 this Saturday as it is broadcast from Caen, Miss Nationale will be crowned the day after in a smaller ceremony in Paris.
Although no broadcaster will carry Miss Nationale, de Fontenay has secured a somewhat mature judging panel comprising advertising agency founder Jacques Séguéla, writer Henry-Jean Servat, journalist Ivan Levaï and Supertramp’s John Helliwell.
The last pageant “battle” we can recall was the controversy over Miss Sweden—Fröken Sverige—when the official pageant chose not to send a delegate to Miss Universe, and another pageant, Miss Universe Sweden, emerged. The rationale that was advanced by Fröken Sverige was that it wanted to run a more modern, relevant pageant, and even sent the winner, Azra Duliman, to the COP15 climate change talks in København last year.
This has also happened in Thailand before. When the committee organising Miss Thailand disagreed among themselves more than 10 years ago, the new title of Miss Thailand Universe by TV channel company appeared simply because they was holding the license for Miss Universe, leaving the old traditional pageant as a local competition.
Tahiti, Guadalupe, Reunion, etc. are all constitutionally part of France. Think Hawaii in Miss USA.
Malika, although beautiful, was a limp dishrag. The new Miss France is far less beautiful but has DOES have energy. Still, I would have chosen Miss Martinique or Miss Ile de France.
to Aja : it’s simply unbelievable to write anything on a beauty pageant website except about beauty pageants ! Dear Aja, before making a fool of yourself, simply try to learn just a little about history and geography just to name a few… The REAL annoying about the Miss France Contest is to let people talk about something they don’t know at all and not about the real topic, a beauty pageant !! The odd thing is to let Guadeloupe, Reunion or Tahiti, as you named them, compete as a country in a beauty pageant ! To teach you something, France is the territory in Europe plus the territories out of there called DOM and TOM (territories overseas, colonies indeed). For your own culture, they are : Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane, Réunion, Mayotte, Polynésie Française (Tahiti is one of the territories), Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, Wallis-et-Futuna, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélémy, Nouvelle-Calédonie and some other little islands from here and there. Don’t you think it’s odd to see Hawaii competing as a country since Hawaii is a US state ? That’s just history my friend ! If any of these territories gets its independance (as Algeria did in 1962 for instance), it will then compete on its own ! Please, don’t mix history with entertainement, thank you !
What is annoying about their contest is having girls compete from territories like Tahiti, Guadalupe, Reunion, etc. instead letting those places compete on their own. I think it’s odd for a girl from Tahiti win and when she gets to MU or MW she can’t really talk about life in France when she’s not even from there.
Genevieve de Fontenay should have never sold the rights to the Miss France pageant. I think she regrets the decision.
well, the Miss France franchise got two Miss Universe semi-finalists (2009 and 2010) and a Miss World (2009) finalist, so this shows that they have started to up their game. Anyone of the Miss 2010 contestants is capable of becoming Miss Universe 2011