Sexually Suggestive Photos Cause Miss France Storm.The MISS FRANCE winner of this year's (07) Miss France contest has been ordered to resign just days into her reign, after a magazine published provocative photographs taken early in her modelling career.
VALERIE BEGUE, 22, a student from the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion, returned home triumphant after her win earlier this month (Dec07).But her joy was short-lived after event organisers took exception to pictures, taken three years ago but only published last week (ends21Dec07), of her floating on a crucifix in a swimming pool and eating yogurt in way deemed lewd by contest officials.
GENEVIEVE DE FONTENAY, 75, a former model who has run the event since the 1950s, has demanded that Begue be stripped of her crown - just two weeks after claiming it.
She says, "I don't understand how she can have had the cheek to enter the competition when she knew perfectly well the ethical rules of Miss France.
"I have no desire to see her again. I certainly cannot see myself going around France escorted by a woman like that. As she is from Reunion, let her stay there!" The dramatic step has caused uproar in Begue's native Reunion, with local radio stations inundated with angry supporters of the model.Begue herself is distraught, and claims to have been "betrayed" by whoever sold the pictures to Entrevue magazine.
She tells France's Le Parisien magazine, "I was never happy with those pictures. They were a mistake that I regret bitterly. But now the wonderful year I had ahead of me is going up in smoke".
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