Is there hair discrimination during the Miss France galaxy competitions? During the Miss Burgundy 2024 election, three mixed-race candidates had to do their own hair: the hairdressers did not have the necessary skills to work with textured hair. Issandre Roger, one of the three candidates, testifies.
The essentials of the day: our exclusive selection
Every day, our editorial team reserves the best regional news for you. A selection just for you, to stay in touch with your regions.
France Télévisions uses your email address to send you the newsletter “Today’s essentials: our exclusive selection”. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link at the bottom of this newsletter. Our privacy policy
Clara Diry was elected Miss Burgundy 2024. If the party was great in Chevigny-Saint-Sauveur (Côte-d’Or), it was a little less so behind the scenes.
While everyone was busy making the ceremony a special moment for each of the contenders, a hiccup disrupted the day. Issandre Roger, Naomi Saxemard and Candice Zeramdini, three candidates with “textured” hair (frizzy, curly, wavy…) had to do their own hair.
Even before arriving at the election site, Issandre Roger was resigned: “Every year it’s the same, there’s a problem with the hair afro. It was not in a regional election that there were going to be hairdressers like us. It added enormous stress to me. I I felt really excluded and wronged. I had a feeling, itThat’s why I brought back my products. But I still had this hope that in 2024, maybethey had something planned.“
Issandre Roger and two other candidates have textured hair that requires special attention.
•
© Valentine Heitz / France Télévisions
After going through makeup, the 23-year-old candidate went to see her appointed hairdresser who found herself powerless when faced with the textured hair of the young Côte-d’Orienne. Disappointed, Issandre says: “The hairdresser said to me: ‘I don’t know how to style your hair, but we have the necessary equipment’. I told her: “give me the hairdryer, I’m going to get rid of ituiller”. She didn’t know what to do, she had no idea, she hadn’t planned a solution. It’s not possible.”
This evening, for Issandre, was however a very special occasion, a moment that should have been magical. But everything collapsed. “OWe were a little behind schedule, because inevitably there are unforeseen events.”she remembers. “It added extra stress to me, I was taken aback. And at one point, II broke down. Like at the departmentals at Miss Côte-d’Or, I cried too. I started to do my hair, but when I saw that all the candidates had their “princess” treatment and I was the only oneto take the hair dryer and do my own hair, it was a shock to me.“
I said to myself “damn, again”. I felt completely excluded, as I have all my life.
Issandre Rogercandidate for Miss Burgundy 2024
More than an additional effect of stress or a hairstyle problem, it is a painful reminder of one’s skin color. Issandre has experienced this situation of exclusion all too often. Born in Chenôve, the Burgundian spent her life in Sennecey-lès-Dijon, a village in Côte-d’Or. However, she explains that she has always been “caught up in clichés”: “I was harassed for my skin color, for my hair and for my legitimacy as a Burgundian. I had a lot of trouble to accept myself and know where I stood in relation to my life and my skin color. The fact that there are no suitable structures for us is to put a knife and salt into this legitimacy.”
This problem of styling frizzy hair, Issandre assures, is not an epiphenomenon specific to the competition. To do her hair on a daily basis, the young woman describes a real “obstacle course“, not to mention the price of products: “Pfor the makeup of people color, it is always one, two or even three euros more expensive than for white people. For textured hair, it’s sometimes ten euros more expensive.”
We are used to being in survival mode. I have always had this mode to find solutions and adapt.
Issandre Rogercandidate for Miss Burgundy 2024
This episode with Miss Burgundy is a situation that has become too usual for the young woman. So rather than scream and protest, she simply chose to wipe away her tears and remain silent. “I didn’t want to do scandal,” she says, almost apologetic.After a while, when you are a person who has suffered so much discrimination and there is no no change, we are exhausted from making scandals. Because people tend to minimize our pain, minimize what we go through on a daily basis, and I don’t want to anymore.”
This product for afro hair, Issandre Roger had it imported from the United States, because it cannot be found in France.
•
© Valentine Heitz / France Télévisions
Fortunately for Issandre, the “hairdresser of one of the former Miss Burgundy” gave him some advice and even took the time to quickly do some final touch-ups to his afro.
Questioned, Yves Roger, vice-president of the Miss Burgundy committee, explains that he did not “assisted with the hairstyles of the candidates” : “I’m a little stunned.”
Naomi Bailly, Miss Burgundy 2016 and volunteer regional delegate for the pageant, seems to take the problem seriously: “I wasn’t aware of it. When I asked the candidates if the competition went well, I only got positive feedback, even from the candidates who had textured hair. The objective for us is to meet all the needs of the candidates and to adapt to their differences. I will discuss with them again to try to do the best for the next time.”
Already in 2021, during the Miss France election, Ambre Andrieu, Miss Aquitaine, explained to Elle magazine that she had to change her haircut to facilitate “the installation of the crown” and that there was “only one hairdresser on site for textured hair. While she usually sports an afro, the candidate was deprived of it, which created a controversy.
Related News :