The end of an era. For the last time, Sylvie Tellier will host the Miss France election evening this Saturday evening with Jean-Pierre Foucault. After more than 15 years at the head of the Miss France committee, the former beauty queen has announced that she will leave her position as CEO of the Miss France company on August 31 to “dedicate herself to business projects.”
An exit that had been around since the arrival of Alexia Laroche-Joubert, in October 2021, as president of the Miss France company. Although Sylvie Tellier assured the RTL microphone at the end of August: “I’m not leaving for Alexia Laroche-Joubert.”
Coming with his ideas and his methods, the producer of Ko Lanta He quickly bumped into Sylvie Tellier, guardian of the temple since Geneviève de Fontenay’s resounding march in 2010.
undivided reign
Because if Sylvie Tellier pointed out that Alexia Laroche-Joubert was its “sixth or seventh president”, it was to better underline that up to now she had reigned undisputed over the competition. “It is true that I have been in office for 15 years and that I have been independent for a long time”, she also slipped to BFMTV last August.
But there is no doubt that Alexia Laroche Joubert will be a puppet president. She announces it as soon as she is named, she is there to “continue the evolutionary dynamics of the brand”, which -in very diplomatic terms- means dust off the contest. The two women are thus quickly at odds over the rule changes that Alexia Laroche-Joubert wishes to initiate.
“Alexia came with new ideas, wishes for the development of the competition,” Sylvie Tellier explained to RTL at the end of August.
The production company wants to bring modernity to the competition, which continues to be strongly attacked by feminists. “I don’t want to be in Victoria’s Secret anymore, with all the hair and all the physique,” she said in December 2021 on BFMTV. Alexia Laroche-Joubert promises Miss France more in tune with society.
As of spring 2022, the president of the Miss France society announces a relaxation of the rules to be able to participate in the contest. The candidates can already be married, mothers and tattooed. Only the size limit remains: you always have to measure 1.70 to aspire to the crown.
Miss trans and miss mother?
And then Alexia Laroche-Joubert believes that it is time to clearly open the doors of Miss France to transgender people. A revolution. “The candidates must be registered in the Civil Registry as women, without asking them if they have undergone a sex change,” she says.
A point on which Sylvie Tellier has often expressed a divergent opinion.
“I don’t think the French are ready to choose a transgender lady,” he said for the first time in 2019 in an interview with the Parisianadding however that it was not “forbidden by the rules”.
“For me it is not a debate”, he stressed again in December 2021, commenting on the statements by Elisabeth Moreno, then delegate minister for Equality between Women and Men, who considered this development “conceivable”.
As a result of this relaxation of the rules, Andréa Furet, a transgender woman, and Victoire Rousselot, a 27-year-old mother, mark the history of the competition by participating in regional competitions in spring and autumn 2022.
Like Geneviève de Fontenay before her, Sylvie Tellier was fiercely opposed to the idea that one could lead the life of a mother and a career as a young lady.
“I am more open to the fact that a Miss France is transgender than to the fact that a Miss France is a mother,” she even confided to Sud Radio in September.
“I have my 9mm under the table”
If Sylvie Tellier has agreed to stay until the end of the year for a “consulting” mission with Cindy Fabre more or less assuming her role, relations with Alexia Laroche-Joubert have not improved.
The culmination of their tensions, the press conference to present the election of Miss France, on November 18, 2022, made the delights of the press. A festival of passive-aggressive exchanges like these phrases by Sylvie Tellier: “I have my 9mm under the table” or “Alexia takes over my duties, she doesn’t like me to say it, so I like to say it.”
All the disputes between the president and the former director return to the carpet, which are torn apart in front of the gaping journalists.
“I was Miss France, I lived 17 years of the program and I am a mother and being Miss is not compatible with being a mother”, balances Sylvie Tellier.
“Just because you’re wearing a scarf doesn’t mean you can’t have privacy,” replies Alexia Laroche-Joubert.
“You bother me”
The exasperation reaches its peak when the producer explains that “Sylvie worked in the Miss France organization, she never worked on the show, she never produced it.”
Abandoning restraint and diplomacy, Sylvie Tellier explodes: “Me? I didn’t work on this show? I can’t let you say that. I worked on this show for 17 years!” “I’m sorry if I offended you,” replies Alexia Laroche-Joubert. “Yes, you bother me, yes, you have to have consideration for all the work done for 17 years.”
A fairly concrete illustration of what Sylvie Tellier was saying to Provence in September.
“I do not hide from you that two women of character who are in the same office can make sparks,” he explained.
“I think she underestimated the difficulty of getting off the ocean liner and seeing that she continues to move forward without her,” Alexia Laroche-Joubert estimated a few days after the press conference in an interview with the Parisian.
Assuring that she does not understand Sylvie Tellier’s strong reaction, she naively declares: “We had lunch together and everything was going well, we even took a selfie with Jean-Pierre Foucault a few seconds before.”
Alexia Laroche-Joubert, who becomes president and general manager of the competition, now works with Cindy Fabre, who is not an employee of the Miss France company. More in tune with the new line, it is also more discreet.
Source: BFM TV
