Hubert Guérin was the right hand of Geneviève de Fontenay, the president of the Miss France Committee. He was closely involved in the organization of the competition for eleven years. In ‘Miss France, du Rêve à la Réalité’, Guérin lets sixty former candidates speak that witnesses about a world of psychological pressure, sexual harassment and silence.
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In 2020 he started writing to the book, following the centenary of Miss France. What started as a nostalgic project soon turned into revealing testimonials. “I discovered a hidden side that I never realized,” he says in the newspaper Progress. “Miss France turns out to be a machine that crushes candidates.”
He recorded harrowing testimonies of former misses: isolation, burnouts and cyberbullying turn out to be the order of the world. The book contains several testimonies of sexual aggression in the organization. The women remain anonymous, but their words are horrifying. “In the year after the election I was assaulted Miss France ”, says one of them. “I was raped a few hours after I was chosen Miss France ”, reveals another woman. “The day after I got my crown, I was forced to suck someone, “someone else testifies.
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Silence and shame
According to Guérin, many incidents took place in the period between 1990 and 2002, often during foreign journeys. Less than one in ten of the French candidates would be directly involved and, in particular, many regional candidates testify about cross -border behavior, from unwanted photos to physical touches.
Why never these stories came out before? Guérin is talking about one omertasimilar to the silence and shame that prevailed for years about abuse in the church. The fear of seeing their dreams in the smoke up, not being believed or harming their reputation, made many lips stiff together for years.
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#Metoo movement
Even Geneviève De Fontenay would have known nothing for a long time, says Guérin. “She always did everything to protect the candidates, “he says. Sylvie Tellier, who took over the helm at the head of the election in 2005, made a lot of reforms: there were female supervisors, more controls and a ban on visits in the backstage. According to Guérin, those measures” have the risks “decreasing considerably”.
Guérin hopes that his book will change: “It is my goal to grow this into a kind of#metoo movement around Miss elections.” He wants to encourage victims to break the silence. “Behind the glitter and glamor complex stories and testimonials about resilience.” His attempts to speak with the current Miss France management ran out. “Several women were banned to talk to me,” said Hubert Guérin.