why is New Caledonia not represented in the competition?

While thirty candidates will parade on December 14 in the hope of winning the crown of Miss France 2025, one region will be missing: New Caledonia.

A region is deprived of Miss this year. On December 14, thirty young women will give the best of themselves on the stage of the Arena Futuroscope in Poitou on the occasion of the election of Miss France 2025. All of them hope to succeed Ève Gilles by charming the public, but also a hand-picked jury which is chaired this year by Sylvie Vartan. The singer will be supported by the triple Olympic athletics champion Marie-José Pérec, the stylist and presenter Cristina Cordula, the dancer Fauve Hautot, the comedian Nawell Madani, the Franco-Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili and Miss France 2014 Flora Coquerel. Unfortunately, New Caledonia has no chance of winning.

Indeed, the region which has only missed one Miss France election since 1999 has no beauty queen to represent it in the 2025 edition of the competition. And this, because of the political situation which has reigned on the archipelago for several months, and which had pushed the Miss France committee to cancel the regional election. “The Miss New Caledonia Committee wishes to inform Caledonians that due to the current context on our archipelago, we are forced to give up organizing the Miss New Caledonia 2024 election this year”the organizers announced last June.

A last minute election?

A “decision taken reluctantly” by the Committee, which then considered that the priority was then “the return to calm and serenity”. Plagued by violent riots since last May, New Caledonia saw a curfew imposed on May 14, which was only lifted on December 2. The anger of Caledonians was provoked by the vote in the National Assembly for an electoral reform criticized by the separatists, which was finally abandoned by former Prime Minister Michel Barnier upon his arrival in Matignon. Unfortunately, a few days before the Miss France 2025 competition, it is impossible to organize a last minute election. New Caledonia is, however, replaced by Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy, which have participated in the competition since 2012.