Bizarre row erupts over French beauty pageant as judges accused of 'going woke' after crowning winner to woman with pixie cut hair

However, the decision was met with an unexpected backlash that it has gone "woke" after the judges chose "androgynous" Gilles as Miss France 2024 after all previous winners featured more supposedly "traditional" long, flowing hair and curves.

Negative comments included one who said that she "doesn't look anything like Miss France" and that "we don't care about her haircut but the androgynous body is obviously there to serve as woke".

Another user said: "Miss France is no longer a beauty contest but a woke contest which is based on inclusiveness."

However, these negative comments were quickly drowned out by a wave of support for the newly crowned Miss France, who is studying Maths and Computer Science at Lille University.

One fan wrote: "Maybe the new #MissFrance isn't gorgeous in your eyes, but seeing wokeism in her because she has short hair.... It's just ridiculous."

Another added: "Eve Gilles is the new Miss France 2024, your malicious and useless criticisms won't change that, she's sublime" with another saying "Eve Gilles isn't even trans, has never claimed to be trans, but half of the comments about her are transphobic because she has short hair," a third said.

French MP Sandrine Rousseau, who also wears a pixie cut, added: "So, in France, in 2023, we measure the progress of respect for women by the length of their hair?"

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Politician Marine Le Pen wrote on Twitter: "Congratulations to Eve Gilles, Miss Nord-Pas-de-Calais who becomes our new Miss France!"

Karima Delli MP said: "Big support for Ève Gilles, #MissFrance2024, in the face of hateful tweets on social networks of incredible violence! Swallow your venom, she is not only superb, Miss Nord pas de Calais is intelligent in embracing her diversity!"

In November, she told French news outlet BFM Grand Lille: "I would especially like to defend the image of women, that they can do what they want, that they can be what whatever she likes.

"I want to break the codes, to show that women can be diverse, that we don't need to be put in boxes. That's what I want to show."

The pageant winner is chosen half by a public vote and half by a jury. While Gilles only came third in the public vote, the panel of judges pushed her into first place.

Gilles, who was born in Dunkirk and has an Instagram page for her cat Princess Heidi, is the youngest of three sisters and said it was her grandfather who encouraged her to enter the competition.

She said: "My family is really very important. It's my little cocoon. We are very close, we did everything together."

Gilles is studying Maths and Computer Science at Lille University and travels back to her family in Quaëdypre, near Dunkirk, every weekend. She had first started studying medicine "so as not to regret it later" but "didn't like it", Gilles said, adding that she worked in a factory to earn money.

Chief executive of Banijay France which owns the Miss France brand Alexia Laroche-Joubert defended the pageant as a symbol of "success" and a "social elevator" for contestants who have later become "businesswomen, doctors or film directors".

Some of the changes brought in include the removal of an age limit for participants, as well as the competition opening for married and trans women.

However, Melinda Bizri of the Human Rights League in Dijon, which called for a boycott of the ceremony, called the cosmetic changes "feminist-washing."

She said: "Women have been abusing themselves all their lives to achieve these phantasmagorical criteria, according to patterns that take a very long time to deconstruct."