Miss France winner Eve Gilles pointed out that ‘huge numbers of French women’ have short hair (Picture: Mega)
The winner of this year’s Miss France contest has hit back after suffering a ‘wave of body-shaming’ and bizarre criticism over her short hair.
Eve Gilles, 20, was crowned at a final in Dijon on Saturday which was watched by an estimated 7.5 million people on TV.
Describing her look as ‘androgynous’, she had been outspoken about the need to ‘diversify’ beauty standards and ‘demonstrate the modernity of this contest’.
In her final speech before the results were announced, she said: ‘In my opinion beauty is not limited to a haircut or shapes that we have… or not. Nobody should dictate who you are.’
Social media has since been awash with bizarre criticism by trolls claiming her victory was the result of ‘woke’ scheming by judges.
The contest was decided by both public and jury votes, which were weighted equally in the final decision.
Ms Gilles came third in the public vote but received enough jury votes to beat out the two contestants preferred by spectators, Audrey Ho-Wen-Tsaï and Jalylane Maës.
Ms Gilles, from the Nord-pas-de-Calais region, was crowned on Saturday (Picture: AFP)
One commentator wrote to his 53,000 followers on X: ‘So Miss France was chosen because she claimed to be different and because of her woke discourse.’
Another wrote: ‘We don’t care about her haircut but the androgynous body is obviously there to serve as woke.’
Trolls also shared doctored Wikipedia screenshots falsely suggesting Ms Gilles is trans.
A post seen by hundreds of thousands of users said: ‘The winner of Miss France 2024 fulfilled almost all the woke criteria of the day, short hair, no breasts, victimisation over those two criteria (lol), completely loony in her speech. All she’s missing is a d**k.’
Ms Gilles says she ‘cannot understand’ people who body-shame others (Picture: AFP)
Ms Gilles, who is studying maths at university and wanted to become a statistician before the contest, described the impact of suffering a ‘wave of body-shaming’ after swimsuit pictures were published during the contest.
She told Le Parisien, a French newspaper, on Sunday: ‘I stopped looking at these comments saying I’m thin, I have no shape, whatever.
‘Criticism over my hair doesn’t bother me, I chose for it to be that way and I can change it.
‘But I don’t choose my body. I don’t choose my shape. The metabolism I have, I don’t choose it.
The beauty pageant has come under pressure to improve diversity (Picture: AFP)
‘These are things one learns to live with, and I don’t understand how people can criticise something that one cannot change anything about.’
The contest, which dates back to the 1920s, has repeatedly come under pressure to improve diversity.
In 2021, it was sued by a feminist group for sexism and discrimination over rules banning mothers and married women from entering.
Those restrictions have now been abolished, as well as rules requiring entrants to be no older than 24, and trans women were able to take part this year for the first time.
Ms Gilles has also rejected claims that the beauty pageant is ‘outdated (Picture: AFP)
In an interview on French TV station TF1 moments after winning, Ms Gilles said: ‘Each woman is different and we are all unique.
‘I’ve talked about my short hair because, usually, contestants have beautiful long hair. I chose a more androgynous, more masculine side [of myself] that nonetheless preserves my femininity.’
She has since expressed a preference not to talk about her pixie cut – whose French term roughly translates to ‘tomboy’ – because a ‘huge number of French women’ also have short hair.
Challenged over criticism that Miss France is ‘outdated’, she told Le Parisien: ‘If it’s outdated, why do so many people still watch it?
‘If it’s outdated, why do so many girls keep entering? It’s a huge opportunity for us. For me, Miss France also embodies a part of feminism.
‘These are young women who have chosen by themselves to be there.’
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