In her trademark black and white hat and severe pancake make-up, 78-year-old Genevieve de Fontenay has reigned supreme over the Miss France beauty contest for more than half a century.
However, shocked by a series of nude photo scandals, the self-styled doyenne of decorum has set up a rival pageant in a moral crusade against current Miss France owners, the reality TV company Endemol, which she accuses of cheapening the contest.
The dispute is gripping France, where despite a popular history of intellectualism and demure dressing, the masses are as hooked as the rest of the world on the skimpily dressed celebrities made famous by reality TV and beauty contests.
The battle will come to a head this weekend, when de Fontenay’s “Miss Nationale” is picked in a modest ceremony in Paris, a day after the official Miss France contest is broadcast on prime-time under the patronage of veteran actor Alain Delon.
“Miss France’s image of dignity and respectability has been flouted,” said de Fontenay, a fashion model in her youth who took the reins of the pageant in 1954 alongside her now deceased partner Louis Poirot-de Fontenay.
“I’ve decided to do something different, and public opinion is behind me,” de Fontenay said.
A striking beauty in her day, the now heavily made-up de Fontenay is a familiar figure in France, and well-known for her public rants against society’s moral decline.
Her battle with Endemol dates back to 2002, when she sold the rights to the Miss France contest to the reality-TV giant, which is owned by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire Mediaset.
Although de Fontenay continued to preside over the pageant, the partnership was never an easy one.
The final straw came earlier this year when Endemol paid a former Miss Paris to appear in one of its reality TV shows, after previously stripping her of her title for publishing photos de Fontenay criticized as “pornographic.”
“Miss France should be dignified under all circumstances, show respect for others — a girl with her legs apart is hardly what I’d call dignified and I can’t allow that,” de Fontenay said.
Accusing Endemol of hypocrisy, she has since traveled around France, drumming up support for her own version of the contest which she says focuses on traditional values.
However, her moral stance is up against the media might of Endemol, whose televised Miss France drew 8 million viewers last year, or 40 percent of the total viewing population, while Miss Nationale has so far failed to find a broadcaster.
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