Miss France: The beauty pageant has been sued by a major feminist organization.
A major feminist organization in France said on Monday it was suing the promoters of the Miss France beauty pageant in a labor court, alleging they used discriminatory criteria to select participants.
The group “Osez le Feminisme” (Dare to be a Feminist) with three unsuccessful contestants stated that they were targeting the Miss France company as well as Endemol Production, which airs an annual TV program on the TF1 channel.
The plaintiffs argue that the companies are breaking French labor law with discriminatory selection criteria by forcing aspiring beauty queens to be more than 1.70 meters tall, single and “representative of beauty”.
The French labor code prohibits companies from discriminating on the basis of “morality, age, family status or physical appearance”, Violin de Philippe-Abet, a lawyer for Osage Le Feminism, told AFP.
The case, filed in a labor court in the Paris suburb of Bobigny, will depend on whether magistrates identify the Miss France contestants as the organizers and actual employees of the TV company.
The contestants do not sign an employment contract, but the plaintiffs point to an adjudicating decision in 2013 when a former Mr France competitor also sued for similar reasons.
The Miss France company declined to comment when contacted by AFP.
The next match will take place on December 11 in Caen, northern France.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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