How happy we are sometimes to be wrong. We had not placed Miss Martinique among our five favorites. Because we didn't believe it. We met Angélique Angarini-Filopon in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) during the integration trip for the thirty candidates for Miss France 2025, she was wonderful, inspiring as they say.
Touching, with its ups and downs, the admission of depression, of a restart on the island of her grandparents and parents, where she had never lived herself before her departure to Fort-de-France. -France a year ago. Radiant by the light that we felt so strong after the shadow. She didn't think she was particularly pretty. She joked if she was complimented. “If you say so.” »
A unique and singularly endearing and interesting candidate. But were the viewers going to vote for a young woman of 34 years old, and who did not particularly have a profile – physically speaking – of Miss? What a stupid question, isn't it? What a pointless consideration. Easy to say now.
The Misses change, so do the voters
The Misses change, the women change, so do the men and the voters. Two years since a woman with short hair won the election. And it is also the first time that Martinique has won the title. With a beauty queen who didn't really believe it either. In our defense, Angélique Angarni-Filipon shared our doubts, as she confided at 1:37 a.m., in the night, fifty minutes after her election, in a Futuroscope lounge, in front of a few journalists.
She had just won, and we asked her if she too found it incredible, or if she had believed in it from the start. The answer is frank and direct like everything that will come from her: “By becoming Miss Martinique, there was a possibility that I would become Miss France. And perhaps a sign: I was the 14th regional Miss elected, on September 14, and it is December 14. But at each regional election, I said to myself, oh yeah they are very beautiful, and I saw victory slipping away. I thought it would be great, this experience. But it was very, very far away, in my head, from telling myself that I was going to win. »
“In the name of all those who were once told that it was too late”
During a very open election, on the stage of the Futuroscope Arena, the thirty-year-old – the only candidate, even, to have exceeded or even reached thirty years in the entire history of the competition, knowing that the limit of The age of 25 was only abolished in 2022 – the Martinican, certainly, seemed to have knocked out all the other Misses at the time of the first speech, that of the fifteen semi-finalists.
So much nervousness and awkward voices, difficult to finish sentences among her competitors. Angélique Angarni-Filipon had the famous winning phrase, speaking “on behalf of all those who were told one day that it was too late”. One of those formulas that leave a mark and that come from afar, from the heart and the bare of life.
She knows that her experience speaks to many other women: “You would be surprised by the number of messages I have received, from women who want to change jobs, countries, lives, and who think it is impossible. It's never too late. »
School harassment
The new Miss France is not the vindictive or rebellious type, but she knows where she comes from (re) come. “I was very little until CM2, and I had front teeth, I was called little pony “, she said in a smile where you could feel the old sting of mockery and harassment. In Abidjan, she also told us that she had gone through depression after a breakup. “I was sad. I wanted to move.”
She, who grew up in Vauréal, in Val-d'Oise, and lived in Île-de-France for a long time, wanted to leave a year ago. And to return to the native island of his parents and grandparents. Without taking a return ticket, this time, like during the summer holidays of yesteryear. Fort-de-France, after Paris. Stronger than chess, she who didn't like school and has been working since she was seventeen.
Several lives already, in tourism, insurance and airplanes, she works as a flight attendant for the company Corsair. She loves her job but who knows if she will one day wear her flight crew uniform? She smiles when asked. “As always, I will go where the wind takes me. We’re going to have an incredible year, you’ll see.” The wind will blow, very gentle.
Serene and confident
Friday afternoon, we met her at rehearsals for the competition, on the eve of the show at Futuroscope near Poitiers (Vienna). She radiated, very serene: “I have had a much more positive image of myself for a month,” she confided between two sequences. I even want to wear less makeup, to lighten it up. And to change my wardrobe, to please myself. » To accept being beautiful, deep down.
After her victory on Saturday, she cried for a long time. Cindy Fabre, the director of the competition, confided that she had never read “so much astonishment in the eyes of a winner. Angélique didn't believe it. She asked me to pinch it and I pinched it to come down a little. »
Her parents took the stage immediately after the end of the broadcast on TF 1. Her mother, who survived very invasive breast cancer, in a sumptuous red dress. And her father, a former brigadier, who trains police officers and represents a model for her through his open-mindedness. “There were few video games at home. My parents preferred to see us with books.” She has a brother who has children, a sister, is 1.83 m tall, has many friends including several from her different professional lives in the stands, confiding that she was “wonderful”.
A historic victory for Martinique
Miss France does not want to be reduced to a surprise or a concept. “I am reminded of my age all the time, I think I am well preserved. I don't have any wrinkles. Thirties is perhaps the best age. In my twenties I searched a lot for myself, I wanted to be like everyone else.” She perhaps found herself by seeking in otherness the certainty of her elegance, her flair, her beauty.
Everyone needs to be a lucky “chosen one”. Martinique had never had a Miss France. What a meeting between an island and a woman who settled there after many detours and a few disappointments. There was a sort of missed opportunity in 2011, when she had already stood for election, elected first runner-up in Martinique. It was not his moment or his destiny, it was probably not September 14th.
Fourteen reasons to be happy. She would surely be able to answer this question with relish. Viewers recognized themselves in her. But also in Sabah Aïb, 18 years old, his runner-up from Nord Pas-de-Calais, who came first in the public vote. The jury was sensitive to her journey as a woman and tipped her towards the title, as with Eve Gilles last year. Miss France is a fairy tale, but sometimes like that night, it is above all a magnificent life story. A kind of appeasement, justice, good news. No, it's never too late.
