2023-08-02 17:06:35
Geneviève de Fontenay died on the night of Monday to Tuesday, her family members told AFP, confirming information from the private channel TF1. She was a “figure of our popular culture”, “whose commitment and personality earned her the affection of millions of our compatriots”, welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron in a press release. “A woman of character, she embodied a vision of elegance, a certain image of what France should be. The era has changed but it has remained in the hearts of many French people”, reacted on Twitter, renamed X, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
Geneviève de Fontenay has made a part of our heritage shine. A woman of character, she embodied a vision of elegance, a certain image of what France should be.
Times have changed but it has remained in the hearts of many French people. pic.twitter.com/tKdYoxaGY6— Élisabeth BORNE (@Elisabeth_Borne) August 2, 2023
Withdrawn from public life for years, she was charged in June with insults and incitement to transphobic discrimination. Emblematic “Miss of Misses”, she had slammed the door of the contest for differences of opinion in 2010. Defending a conservative image of femininity, she had gradually been ostracized.
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In 2002, the European reality TV giant Endemol bought the company Miss France. Quickly, the “lady in the hat” and Endemol had entered “in ethical conflict”, according to her, on the organization of the competition and the ceremony.
She had ended up slamming the door to launch her own dissident national Miss Prestige contest, triggering a legal war with Endemol. Born on August 30, 1932 in Longwy (Meurthe-et-Moselle, in the north-east of France) in a family of ten children of which she was the eldest, Geneviève Mulmann was early noticed by her outfits, wearing from the adolescence of chic tailoring. In 1954, she met the president of the Miss France structure at the time, Louis Poirot, known as de Fontenay, 24 years her senior. Elected “Miss Elegance” 1957, Geneviève de Fontenay was a model for Balenciaga.
She will take over alone in 1981 the direction of the Miss France Committee, following the disappearance of Louis de Fontenay.
Sadness and emotion following the death of our dear Geneviève de Fontenay with whom I shared the honor of sponsoring the citadel of @Rodemack @MoselleCD57 I liked his outspokenness, his patriotic outbursts, his defense of @MissFrance RIP thoughts to his family pic.twitter.com/b2tIpeUDPF
— Stéphane Bern (@bernstephane) August 2, 2023
“Sadness and emotion following the disappearance of our dear lady in the hat. (…) I liked his outspokenness, his patriotic outbursts, his defense of Miss France. RIP. Thoughts to his family”, reacted on the social network X (ex-Twitter) the journalist and host Stéphane Bern.
By Le360 (with AFP)
On 08/02/2023 at 5:01 p.m.
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