Marseille (AFP)

Thirty young women, a laureate: Miss France 2020 must be designated Saturday in Marseille after a beauty contest denounced as "nerdy" in the post-# MeToo era by feminists, but followed each year by millions of viewers .

Miss France 2020 will succeed before the cameras of TF1 Polynesian Vaimalama Chaves. The Misses in the running are aged 18 for Miss Lorraine, Ilona Robelin, the youngest, at 24 for Miss Brittany, Romane Edern.

Unlike last year, the jury will not be 100% female. It will be chaired by the captain of the French women's football team Amandine Henry, and includes three other women, including actress Laetitia Milot, and three men including pastry chef Christophe Michalak.

For the 25th year, the stainless Jean-Pierre Foucault will be at the helm of the evening, organized on the theme of "Miss World Tour" for the first time in a large room in his hometown, Marseille. He will be joined by Miss France general manager Sylvie Tellier and will host British singer Robbie Williams as guest of honor.

As every year, the votes of viewers TF1 to elect the winner should be in the millions: the night of Miss France remains a big issue for the channel, and the company Endemol that produces the show. Last year, the ceremony garnered the second best audience of the year (7.3 million viewers) across all channels. But the figures seem to be eroding: the record of 2006, with 9.4 million viewers, is far, and Miss France has not exceeded the 8 million mark since the 2015 edition.

These six-figure audience scores, however, sadden the association Dare Feminism, which denounces every year a contest "sexist and corny".

- "Retrograde vision" -

Despite the awareness of society on sexual harassment or violence against women, "we are a bit desperate (by the success of Miss France) and we see that we do not advance that much," says to AFP Céline Picq, one of her spokespersons. The association is particularly alarmed by the expected avalanche of comments "hyper degrading" on social networks during the broadcast.

Locally, the allocation of a subsidy of 150,000 euros to the organization of the contest by the town hall was denounced by the left, the communist councilman Jean-Marc Coppola seeing the promotion on public funds of a "retrograde vision of women". Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin promised him "significant economic benefits" for the city in terms of image.

In early December, the host Laurent Ruquier had opened a new front, via a call for boycott, which would be "a good start" according to him: "Since we must stop to look at women as objects, stop judging on their physical, and systematically favor the prettiest, "he said in his show" We are not lying ".

Ruquier, whose show "Big Heads Make New Year" on France 2 is in direct competition with Miss France Saturday night, then backpedaled on Twitter, pleading the "second degree".

On the side of Miss France, the organizers insist on the "personalities" or the "stories" of the candidates. "I would like to respond to feminists that no matter how you gain fame, being a woman means being free," Sylvie Tellier told AFP in late November.

Miss France 2019, Vaimalama Chaves abounds: "As a woman, I claim the right to participate in a contest like this: Would not it be contradictory to want to defend the rights of women while depriving them of this freedom?".

© 2019 AFP