One day we will have to stop talking about her short hair. Even if, according to her detractors (they exist), she herself also overdid it this Saturday evening in Dijon (Côte d’Or) during the election of Miss France, by reducing the “difference” to the size of a lock or bangs. This is not entirely true.
Ève Gilles, 20 years old, student in mathematics (and more precisely statistics) in Lille (North) after growing up in a village in Flanders, crowned live on TF 1 at the end of the evening, or even first thing this Sunday , could be at the origin of a small revolution, not just for the hair. We could not help but notice her among the thirty candidates as soon as they boarded for Guyana and the collective preparation for the show, at the end of November. “It seems to me that I am the first” to sport such a short haircut, confirmed the young brunette, whose mother is from Reunion. Memory associates misses with the hair of princesses from animated films or fairy tales. Eve cut hers suddenly like one bites into an apple, on a whim, towards the end of high school. No prohibition.
That’s not all. If a Miss France must above all be consensual, the 2024 beauty queen divides or even divides since it was the jury which put her on the throne even though she was not the public’s favorite according to the votes . Too different, also for another reason. During the press conference which followed the election in Dijon, around 1:30 a.m. in the night, Ève Gilles spoke about this “body shaming” of which she was a victim like many women: in French, criticism, even insults, on a body not within the social norm.
The young woman looks like a creeper, which could be a compliment but could pass for thinness. The strongest sentence of his speech on stage was this: “Beauty is not the shapes we have… or that we don’t have. » She smiled, tired at the same time, and even lost her words. A sentence that nails the way we look at women and their curves. Paradox for this 1.70 m student (1 cm shorter and she could not have participated in the competition) who practices (and even teaches) dance, whose every gesture exudes elegance. Yes, it remains a competition and Ève Gilles has no lesson in posture and natural grace to receive, some know how to walk, move, move better than others. A sort of evidence of his body. Let her accept him as he is.
Scene seen in Guyana, the day of the famous general knowledge test. Some misses are stressed or don’t really know how to revise. On the terrace of a paradise island (despite the old prisons of sinister memory just behind), a group of candidates who finished the photo shoot in swimsuits are resting. It lasts, one falls asleep sitting at a table. Eve, wearing her Miss Nord Pas-de-Calais sash, with unrelenting energy and good humor, takes matters in hand and works for the group, binder in hand: “Come on, let’s continue with the questions. You have to go to the European Union website.”
It’s true, there will be a question about Croatia which has just adopted the euro. If she speaks of difference, the new queen of France is unifying. Already in this little kingdom of operetta and glitter, but also of secret stories of girls aged 18 to 28 who are looking for an identity. She wasn’t just playing for herself.
Ève Gilles was already making headlines before her election and there is a good chance that the French will “print” her presence, her face, her name, which has not always been the case in recent years. Miss France perhaps needs her. Her two speeches of the evening were not perfect but we do not ask a twenty-year-old student to have the experience of an experienced politician, as long as that is really a guarantee of credibility.
Fourth title of Nord-Pas-de-Calais
In the times to come, we will discover Quaëdypre (yes, we still have a lot to learn about the names of our villages) where she grew up, in Flanders, and on Hersin-Coupigny, the locality barely larger than the one whose One of the grandfathers is Belgian and won his first Miss title. After Camille Cerf in 2015, Iris Mittenaere in 2016, Maëva Coucke in 2018, this is the fourth title for Nord Pas-de-Calais. Show no mercy.
The North is not abstaining from this election, supports its elected representatives, but it is a jury of seven women with very varied profiles and from all regions who decided to make Ève Gilles better known to the French, and France to the winner. She had cut off a huge length of hair “so she no longer looked like a little girl.” Shrink to grow. She has loved math “since she was little”. And extreme sports like bungee jumping. Miss France is a straightforward organization and dizzying. The lines, geometric or not, could move this year.