Sabah Aïb (Miss Nord-Pas-de-Calais), symbol of an election which almost never escapes racism

MISS FRANCE 2025 – A sad reality. This Saturday, December 14 at the Arena Futuroscope in Poitiers, the 95th election of Miss France will take place to designate the one who will succeed Ève Gilles in 2025. But before the beauty contest which will be broadcast live on TF1, Sabah Aïb (Miss Nord -Pas-de-Calais) was the victim of racist remarks on social networks. Before her, many candidates had been.

Since his election to the regional competition on October 19, Sabah Aïb has admitted to facing a wave of hatred because of his North African origins. “My parents and my grandparents were born in France. I have never had the slightest racist remark in my life, until this election. I didn't expect that.” explained the young woman at the end of last week in the columns of Parisian.

If the second year law student a “stepped back” on the situation to focus on the beauty contest, she is unfortunately far from being the first candidate for the Miss France election to be the target of attacks because of her origins and/or her skin color.

Seven people sentenced in 2021

Evelyne de Larichaudy, Miss Île-de-France 2019, told Franceinfo in 2020 that she too had been in the sights of Internet users because of her Asian origins. “It was like “Miss Île-de-France is not the girl who works in the Bondy wok””particularly remembered the one who finished 13th in the beauty contest.

During this same election, Miss Provence received messages of an anti-Semitic nature because of her father's Israeli nationality. “This competition, which was truly a childhood dream, was ruined by people who simply wanted to spread their hatred”confided April Benayoum in an interview with Gala at the time. Since then, seven people have been ordered to pay fines ranging from 300 to 800 euros in November 2021.

Inexcusable behavior

Attacks that do not stop on election night, quite the contrary. On the day of her coronation in 2014, Flora Coquerel was also confronted with this type of insult for the first time in her life. “With such a high-profile show, I knew I was going to be criticized, even for my skin color,” then confided the Franco-Beninese in The World.

The model, member of the Miss France 2025 jury, was able to count on the support of Sonia Rolland, the only other Miss with African origins to have won the title. In the documentary Me, Miss France? broadcast on TF1 in 2022, the Franco-Rwandan had also mentioned the fact that her victory in 2002 had “ unleashed a part of the French who could not stand the idea of ​​a Miss France being of African origin.”

As reported then Tele-Leisure, the beauty queen turned actress, revealed that her mother received “feces in envelopes”while Geneviève de Fontenay, president of the committee between 1981 and 2010, had received “insulting letters and death threats”.

After the coronations of Sonia Rolland and Flora Coquerel, those of Miss Guyana Alicia Aylies in 2017 and Miss Guadeloupe Clémence Botino in 2020 had in turn triggered waves of racist comments. “It’s incredibly violent, it’s undeniable,” noted at the time Corinne Coman, Miss Guadeloupe elected Miss France in 2003, for the channel Overseas The First. “Afterwards, it is not a new phenomenon because it does not only affect the Misses but also artists, politicians”added the former beauty queen.

Racist controversies for (at least) 35 years

Especially since cases of this kind, during and after the competition, have almost always existed. Suzanne Iskander, whose family was born in Lebanon, was entitled to the same remarks as Sabah Aïb when she won the title of Miss France in 1985. “They put a photo of me with a target in my mailbox, I had anonymous phone calls, they told me “dirty Arab, go back to your country”, “you’re eating our bread”, “I’m going rape you”, “kill you””, she also told Franceinfo in 2020.

“A newspaper published racist messages about me, telling me that people liked to read negative things about other people,” also detailed the former Miss Alsace, who specified having received the support of Geneviève de Fontenay at the time, like most of the candidates who testified to this horrible experience.

This Saturday, December 14, Sabah Aïb, also taken to task because of her ancestry, Algerian on her father's side and Moroccan on her mother's, could become the first woman of North African origin to become Miss France. Especially since according to this AI, the candidate is even one of the three favorites of this edition.

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