Christmas row over the newly-crowned Miss France amply shows

SAINT-DENIS DE LA REUNION, France (AFP) - When the bitching begins there are surely few sights uglier than a beauty pageant, as the Christmas row over the newly-crowned Miss France amply shows. ADVERTISEMENT Like a chaotic scene from the film "Miss Congeniality", this year's contest has rapidly descended into a complete French farce with bikinis, crucifixion imagery, an outraged bishop defending the girl, a post-colonial racism row and legal action set to follow. It all seemed so innocent when Valerie Begue, a 22-year-old business studies student, brought the coveted Miss France title back to the Indian Ocean island for the first time in 31 years.

She was given a heroine's welcome at Saint-Denis airport five days before Christmas, only for the publication of suggestive photos the next morning, in a French scandal magazine, to unleash a wave of controversy and potential legal action. Pictures of a scantily-clad Valerie in crucifixion pose in a swimming-pool, and lying on her stomach licking yoghurt, might seem increasingly blase in this day and age. But the rules for Miss France, and for Genevieve de Fontenay who has presided over most of the title's 61 years, strictly forbid posing for photographs in "ambiguous" fashion, past or present, with the girls having to sign formal declarations to that effect. The result? De Fontenay says she refuses to sanction "Miss France on a cross" and demands that Begue resign "immediately," which Valerie refuses to do. Instead, she is to mull over her position, perhaps sinking into some Christmas comfort food in the process.

The outcome has been an enraged Reunion Island uniting in protest at what the province's communist party deemed "a return to the (colonial) days of discrimination and racism." It has demanded an apology from de Fontenay, following a church demonstration on Sunday where some 300 leading figures offered their support to the 5 foot 10 inch (1 metre 74) brunette. None more so than the Bishop of Reunion himself, Monsignor Gilbert Aubry, who said: "Valerie is a victim in need of support. I have nothing to forgive her for, she has not offended me." Even if he found the religious metaphor used by the photographer "shocking" and an "insult" to Christians, he observed that bikinis and angels' wings were also used in the TV spectacular that saw Valerie win over celebrity judges and a popular vote. The offending pictures are said by the girl to have been taken three years ago in a try-out for lingerie brand, Pardon, and were not for publication.

The bishop had previously complained about the firm selling Virgin Mary thongs. Its director, Peter Mertes, has said he will file legal papers following the "theft" of the pictures, while Valerie's parents have stated that she will sue the magazine. Valerie will return to Paris to face de Fontenay's Miss France grand committee after the festive break, with Vahinerii Requillart, the reigning Miss New Caledonia, France's south Pacific territory, the favourite to take over the title if need be. Winners have been stripped of their crown before, with semi-nude images in Playboy putting paid to Laetitia Bleger's 2004 reign midway through, and a Mister France the following year also falling foul of his "contractual obligations."