The Miss France contest is a famous annual beauty pageant taking place in December and that consists in electing the most beautiful French woman from 37 candidates who represent the various areas of metropolitan France and overseas territories. The candidates are called the “regional Misses”. Even though France has 26 regions in all (22 in metropolitan France and 4 overseas regions), there are 37 “regional misses” because some French regions are huge and several misses can represent the same area. For example, there is one miss representing the Ile-de-France region and another miss who represents Paris (“Miss Paris”) even though Paris is a city and not a region.

The Miss France competition is organized by the Miss France, Miss Europe, and Miss Univers company, which holds the Miss France brand. The Miss France company is a subsidiary of the audio-visual group Endemol, which is in charge of organizing the contest. The director of the company is Sylvie Tellier, who was Miss France 2002. The president of Miss France Organization (in French: le comité Miss France) is Geneviève de Fontenay. She is the driving force behind the company and it is her who organizes the regional contests and who provides the different misses to the Miss France company for the national contest.

To elect the most beautiful French woman who will represent France all over the world for one full year, there is a panel of judges made of famous personalities coming from various horizons such as singers, actors, sport professional etc who have to vote for their favorite candidate as well as the French public.

Requirements:

• To become Miss France, it is necessary:

to be born feminine, with French nationality,
to be between 18 and 25 years-old on November 15 of the current year,
to be at least 1.70m in height
to be unmarried and without children, and not living in cohabitation,
to have clean police records

• In addition, a Miss France contestant should not:

have posed partially or completely nude
have already taken part in Miss France
have appearance prosthetics (wig, colored contact lenses, etc)

The Miss France election has been broadcasted on television since 1987, initially on FR3, then on France 3 – presented by Julien Lepers – and, since 1995, on TF1 – presented by Jean-Pierre Foucault. Since 2005, the election has been produced by Endemol, which repurchased the rights of Miss France.

Since 2001, the masculine counterpart of the Miss France contest is Mister France.

Malika Ménard, who was “Miss Normandie“, won the 2010 Miss France title on December 5th 2009 in Nice. She will represent France in Miss World and Miss Universe.

Chloé Mortaud, Miss France 2009, (left) gives her crown to the new Miss France Malika Ménard on December 5th 2009 in Nice.

Miss France 2010 posing with Miss Bretagne and Miss Rhône-Alpes. The president of Miss France Organization Geneviève de Fontenay (left).