The cat-loving beauty queen who sparked a ‘woke row’: Miss France winner Eve Gilles whose pixie haircut has sparked outrage reveals she STRETCHED her body to meet the 5ft 7in entry requirements… as pictures emerge of her VERY long hair as a child

The newly crowned Miss France at the centre of a woke row about pixie hair had to stretch her under-sized body so as to enter the contest.

Revelations about 20-year-old Eve Gilles’s struggle to fulfil her lifetime ambition to be a beauty queen emerged after she was attacked for looking too boyish.

Critics said the kind of long hair favoured by previous winners – and Gallic female icons such as Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve – would have been far more appropriate than a short pixie bob.

Eve hit back, saying: ‘We’re used to seeing beautiful Misses with long hair, but I chose an androgynous look with short hair.’

Following her triumph on Saturday night, she said it was a win for woke ‘diversity’, and that ‘no one should dictate who you are’.

As the debate about acceptable feminine looks raged, Eve said she was used to being ‘body shamed’, and even faced exclusion from Miss France for being too small.

Entrants to the prestigious contestants need to be at least 5.57ft (1.7m) but Eva was only 5.56ft (1.695m).

The youngster from Quaedypre – a village near Dunkirk – said she accordingly ‘regained the missing millimetres through stretching’.

A picture first published in Eve’s local paper, La Voix du Nord (Voice of the North), shows her beaming for the camera as a girl, while dressed up as a beauty queen.

‘I dreamed of being a Miss since I was little,’ she said, but ‘as I got older I didn’t really know how to start,’ and wanted to feel ‘good in my body, good in my head’.

But when photos were published of her in a swimsuit during a location shoot in Guyana, the nastiness intensified.

‘I was hit by a wave of body-shaming,’ she said. ‘I stopped looking at these comments saying that I am thin, that I have no shape, this thing, that thing.

‘Being criticised about my hair doesn’t bother me, I chose it like that and I can change it.

‘But I don’t choose my body. I don’t choose my shapes. The metabolism that I have, I don’t choose it.

‘These are things that we learn to live with the, and I don’t understand how we can criticise something that we can’t change.’

Eve was born in Dunkirk, and grew up with her surveyor father, Bruno Gilles, her mother, Edith Gilles, and two older sisters – all of whom helped her cope with the pressure. Eve’s mother is from Réunion – an island in the Indian ocean – and met Bruno when she moved to Northern France for work. 

The beauty pageant winner started dancing from the age of four and is also a keen equestrian. 

‘My family is really very important,’ said Eve. ‘It’s my little cocoon. We are very close. We did everything together.’

After high school in Dunkirk, Eve wanted to become a neurologist, before switching her university studies from medicine to maths and computer studies.

Halfway through the academic year in 2021, Eve returned home and decided to apply for a place on the mathematics course at the University of Lille. 

She worked for a year at an egg factory, and now wants to become a statistician.

While waiting to pick up her studies again, Eve worked in an egg factory near her parents’ home – which involved doing shifts at all hours of the day.

‘The path doesn’t matter, the important thing is the arrival,’ she said in an interview with French media on Monday.

‘Two years ago, I worked in a factory to make some money and today I am Miss France. You have to give yourself the means to succeed and believe in your dreams.’

Asked if she thought beauty contests were in themselves dated, Eve replied: ‘My answer is that if it’s cheesy, then why do so many people continue to watch?

‘If it’s corny, why do so many girls keep showing up? This is a huge opportunity for us. For me, Miss France also embodies a part of feminism. These are young women who decided themselves to take part.’ 

Complaints flooded social media after the Miss France judges overrode a public vote to crown Eve in the pageant, which was watched by seven million viewers.

The public, whose vote counted for 50 per cent, put Miss Guiana and Miss Guadeloupe ahead of Eve but critics claimed the all-female judging panel was motivated by wokeness.

No short-haired woman had even reached the final of the 103-year-old pageant before.

Angry comments on Twitter/X included: ‘She doesn’t look anything like a Miss France’, and ‘We don’t care about her haircut but the ­androgynous body is obviously there to serve as woke’.

However, critical voices were soon drowned out by a wave of support for the newly crowned Miss France.

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.’ 

‘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.

MP Sandrinne Rousseau also came to Ms Gilles’ defence and said: ‘So, in France, in 2023, we measure the progress of respect for women by the length of their hair?’ 

Another MP, Karima Delli, wrote: ‘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!’

Speaking after Eve’s win, the Mayor of Quaëdypre told France Bleu: ‘The whole commune is happy, seeing the reactions of all the people present at the broadcast. 

‘I didn’t sleep much, but we’ll sleep tomorrow. It’s a source of pride, I’m 74 years old and it’s the first time I’ve had a Miss in Quaëdypre.’ 

Miss France organisers also hailed the choice as a victory for the kind of diversity the contest has been striving for in the face of feminist attacks since the 1970s.

Last year it opened the contest to transgender women, but maintained the 5ft 7in height qualification.

During their 12-month reign as Miss France, winners are not allowed to gain weight, display tattoos or – crucially – change their hairstyle.

Eve’s victory comes after a Paris court ordered broadcasters to compensate two previous Miss France finalists for secretly filming them and showing their bare breasts on air.

Amid the controversy, Eve’s father Bruno – who works as a surveyor, told French publication Gala that his daughter has always had an ‘adventurous’ spirit.

The proud parent said Eve was ‘very sporty’ but also liked to play in her ‘princess dress and crown and star-studded wand’. 

On her job in the egg factory, he said that his daughter ‘insisted on working staggered hours like everyone else.’ 

Meanwhile, Eve’s mother Edith said her daughter was also fascinated by her older sisters Lisa and Lucie’s makeup collections. 

It was during her time working at the factory that Eve decided she would apply for the local Miss Hersin-Coupigny pageant.

In an interview with the French publication The Voice of the North, Eve said she didn’t want to ‘waste’ the year and explained how the pageant appealed as it would give her a ‘lot of opportunities’.

Her win in that competition led to competing in Miss France – against 48 other finalists from around the country – after travelling around the globe.

She told the publication that she cut her hair short on a ‘whim’.

‘It brought something out of me, it changed me and makes me appear more like a strong woman. This is what I want to show.’

According to her father Bruno, Eve had cut her hair short a ‘long time’ before she applied for the competition.

What’s more, Eve previously told The Voice of the North: ‘I cut my hair first for myself, not to be a miss. Because I wanted myself like that. I see myself as a strong, determined woman, regardless of the size of my hair.’

In 2020, Eve said she had ‘fairytale’ hair that reached all the way down to her lower back. However, the star said she decided to have a drastic haircut as a sign of her ‘independence’.

Speaking during the Miss France pageant, Eve said: ‘We are used to seeing beautiful Misses with long hair, with beautiful curls. Whereas I don’t. I chose an androgynous, more masculine side, which nevertheless makes me feminine.’

As the Miss France ceremony drew to a close, Eve joked that the ‘crown would hold very well, even on her short hair’. 

The beauty Queen said that her victory was a win for ‘diversity’, before adding: ‘Every woman is different, we’re all unique.’

Eve campaigned for ‘diversified’ beauty standards in the lead up to the final of the pageant, which has often been seen as sexist. 

‘I would like to show that the competition is evolving and society too, that the representation of women is diverse, in my opinion beauty is not limited to a haircut or shapes that we have… or not,’ the contestant said during the final as the Telegraph reported.

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.’ 

Actress Beatrice Rosen, who said she favoured another contestant, also jumped into the discussion online. 

‘I understand that there is a real ambient fed up with the wokism that they are trying to make us swallow 24/7, BUT, in the same way that we can criticize a religion but NOT the faithful, I find the sometimes nasty criticisms regarding Eve unfair and counterproductive. 

‘Attacking the physical is an attack below the belt, and putting the weight of the total ideological criticism of Wokism on a young woman of 20 is unfair.

‘This young woman is pretty, and feminine “despite” her short hair. I was and still am an admirer of the singular beauty of Audrey Hepburn, Linda Evangelista, or Jean Seberg, all 3 very thin with short hair, and who nevertheless are female icons who have been adored in the whole world.’