1.78 metres of pure happiness: Miss Picardy has been voted Miss France.  A star was born.

Elodie in the land of her dreams. With the
arm-band of Miss France, the young woman also has that of Miss Picardie.

Morning breakfast on the terrace of the
Maeterlinck Palace in Nice. The chambermaid waits for her autograph.  A new life starts...

The very new Miss France contemplates herself in the mirror and makes an assessment of her personality: "I'm modest," she says "obsessive, intoxicated, artless, sociable and hyperactive"

Like a relay, Sonia Rolland, Miss France 2000,
places her crown on the head of Elodie Gossuin.

With joy, she cries under her crown: "I didn't know any more who I was, where I was, or how I won "

Hearing the news of her win, Miss France 2001 raises her eyes to the sky... and melts in to tears. This scintillating crown which Elodie Gossuin has dreamed of.  Her youthful style has allured the members of the jury - under the direction of Alain Delon - the Olympic champion David Douillet, Robert Sabatier of the Goncourt Academy, the football champion Frank Leboeuf, T.F.1 presenter Jean-Pierre Pernaut, the figure skating couple Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, two former Miss France, Peggy Zlotkowski (1989) and Patricia Spehar (1997), and Vladimir Cosma, who composed the music for the ceremony.

After the paradise, the hell starts.
The one day old queen has only two hours to dream of Abdel and his promise of marriage.   With the alarm clock the swirl will start.

5 o'clock in the morning at the Maeterlinck Palace, after the official reception dinner and an insane night of celebrating, the new Cinderella finally collapsed, exhausted, on the bed in her suite.  "I'm living a dream," she explains to our reporters who come to wake her at 7 am.  "I am in this hotel, I see this scarf Miss France 2001 and I'm in a fairy tale.  I do not know how I will manage the future. I am already afraid of notoriety"  In facing   the challenges of the following days, Elodie knows that it can count on her close relations: her mother, Lysiane, who came to join her in Monaco; her father-in-law, Domenica; her sister, Amélie, 14 years; and her friends in of Trosly-Breuil, the Picardy village where she lives.  "I do not know anybody who doesn't get along with her", confesses Abdel, 22 years old, and her boyfriend for three years. They're engaged?  Wow!  The heart of Elodie, the most beautiful girl in France, is no longer free to be won.

 
Elodie in the arms of her mother, Lysiane, an
Accountant, and of her father-in-law, Domenica,
a Technical Director in electronics. She had not
seen them for three weeks.

In the fairy tale, Cinderella stops dancing at midnight  For Elodie, the marathon of glory and beauty calmed down at 4.30 in the morning, when she traveled with a presidential escort to  the Pelléas and Mélisande Suite at the Maeterlinck in Nice.  Its only fifteen minutes along the low cornice in a city overrun by a  European Summit.  An almost invisible procession, the Riviera at night is well controlled.  And that evening, the only prince available, Albert of Monaco, was absent.

Less than two hours of sleep. At 7 am, the make-up girl and hairdresser arrive, brush and paintbrushes in hand.  Hardly enough time to swallow some breakfast on the large terrace in front of the blue of the Mediterranean. Not even a Jacuzzi.

"Next year, I hope to resume my nursing studies" said  Elodie Gossuin "I like really the job. That said, if I eat my meals every day in de luxe hotels, it will be strange to find myself back to eating carrots ever day at the hospital!" A clever child, born in Rheims, December 15, 1980, Sagittarius, Elodie always wanted to be the first in everything. "She wants to be successful in everthing that she undertakes", declares Lysiane, her mother. After two years of medicine, Elodie became a nurse. She likes the contact with the patients. She would like to devote herself to Pediatrics.

Elodie was 3 years old when her father separated from her mom, an accountant. Lysiane remade her life with Domenica, an electronics engineer. Elodie calls Domenica "Dad".  He did not raise her like the two other children of the couple, Amélie and Jérémie, twins 14 year old. All live in a charming house built seven years ago in Trosly-Breuil in Oise, a quiet village of 2000 people.

In Elodie's room the walls are papered of yellow, as if the teenager had always wanted to live close to the sun.  In her library are the novels of Mary Higgins Clark and the books on medicine. On the parquet floor steps can be heard, for four years she did ballet dancing. A big bed. And the poodle Gipsy, which accompanies his mistress in her strolls on horseback in the Forest of Compiègne, five minutes on foot from Trosly-Breuil.  A painting shows angels looking at the clouds; it is Elodie in wonderland.

Her biggest supporter is Abdel, her boy friend whom she she met at medical college. They have been together three years.   From Montreal to Monaco, during the preparation for the competition, they spoke to each other every day.

"I have believed in her since the beginning," said Abdel. "She is wonderful.  I do not know anybody who doesn't get along with her.  It will be hard not to see her as often as I would like. But one year, that passes quickly... "  They had planned to go on holiday to Morocco this summer. "We will put that back to next year", he adds.

" Corsican!", " Picardie!".  It seems like a call of ancient military regiments.  With the lights down, the monitor retransmits the images of the vote is emphasised.  With eyes still wet with disappointment, the beauty queens do not miss a moment of it.  On stage, there remains but two in the running.  Two pearls of beauty, simplicity and elegance. One brown, Miss Corsican, the other blonde, Miss Picardie. Continental or Island? North or South of France, everyone waits with baited breath.  On a drum roll, which announces the most critical moments, Jean-Pierre Foucault holds the public breathless. In their identical white lace dresses, the young ladies brace themselves and support themselves, with frozen smiles and large wide eyes. "A terrible moment ", Elodie later says.   On the fifth floor of the brightly lit Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, the Room of the Princes is in hushed. Whispered, one hears the last forecasts of the 41 contestants. "It will be Corsican!", "No, Picardie!".  Finally the verdict comes. Foucault announces "Elodie Gossuin". Miss Picardie briefly hesitates.  She remembers the election of Miss France 1989 with its well-known of the collection of howlers, and Peggy Zlotkowski collapsing from shock at the feet of Julien Lepers. But Elodie is called again. The face initially tightens, almost convulses, then the pressure slackens in to tears of happiness and relief. "I did not know any more what I had to do, who was which, nor even how I was called!" remembers the pretty blonde.  In a frantic rush, the beauty queens, good sports, get ready for the traditional handing-over of the crown.  Each one wants to be close to the new Miss France, Year 2001, who already appears inaccessible.

At the end of  room, Lysiane and Domenica, (the engineering manager who installed the system of video-surveillance of at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco) can't see much.  It's been forty eight years since their region gained the title. They savor the victory with their daughter Amelie, and a dozen good friends with the song, immortalized by Yves Montand: "That spoke about Picardie/And about the pink roses whom one finds over there/Both of us in love together/We danced on the pink roses of this time." Regrets, maybe other contestants will have it. Remorse, certainly not.  They worked at a hellish rate. Until the day before the contest. All problems left outside, they rehearse the stages of the big evening to a medley merry written by Vladimir Cosma. "I shall never get it right", cries the Norman, sitting at the sound system. "On Saturday, it's the election, and I will confuse all the choreographies. It's certain, I'm going to get it all wrong... "   Every day, a different Beauty queen breaks-down, while the one from the day re-find's her smile. Three weeks without seeing the family. That begins to make length. "I believe that one quite looks forward to returning home. It's hard.  Our parents begin to miss us and one doesn't hold any more up", confided the beauty queen Miss Orléanais on the way back to the Hotel Mirabeau, after eleven hours of rehearsal.

First wear of a red dress and its blue apron in
the garden of the family home. Elodie is already a small timid girl.

 Crucial for a girl of good education,
learning horsemanship.  Age 18 years.

Saturday evening. The credits scroll across the TV screens. It is not yet the end of the adventure for Miss France.  In the room, she sees Amélie, her small sister. Tears in her eyes, Elodie will have to bear her troubles patiently before holding her in her arms. The organisers break her away with the objective of taking her to see the photographers n the first floor of the Forum. The room is ready for the official reception dinner, organized by the Committee. Champagne!  One thousand five hundred people settle: the beauty queens find family and friends who have come from everywhere for the event. On a big screen, the contest is rerun. Some can not find words: "I am disappointed not to be in the last twelve. My parents, my brother and my boyfriend paid 1000 francs for their tickets, plus transport, plus the hotel, all that to see me for two minutes on stage", confides Miss Artois-Hainaut, with tears in her eyes.  For others, it is euphoria: "I'm so happy!  I finally will be able to return at home! enthuses Miss Rhone-Alps radiantly. "I would not have liked to be Miss France.  Already, my boyfriend left  me three days before my departure after we were together for two years, just because I appeared in the contest."  Some beauty queens relax and find a devilish naturalness which they avoided before.  "During the pre-selection, I immediately understood that I was toast!" exclaims Miss Gascogne. "I arrived in front of the jury, I did not even have time to present myself, they asked me a question. And hop! Thank you, goodbye!"  Another memory in the already well filled life of this charming businesswoman who for two years has imported pieces of furniture from Bali with her partner, to resell at three stores they own.

At the top table drawn up in the center of the room, Genevieve of Fontenay, President of the Miss France Committee presides. Alain Delon, the President of the Jury, and the eleven other voters, among whom are Jean-Pierre Pernaut, Vladimir Cosma, Robert Sabatier, David Douillet, Frank Leboeuf... Star among the stars, Elodie did not dare yet to believe it all yet.  Too much modest to think she was the most important guest.  At age three years, she fell and gained a pretty scar on her face.  More beautiful than a crown.

Alain Delon, President of the Jury, would have perhaps preferred Miss Corsican. He nevertheless seems satisfied to have to sit between Miss France 2001 and Miss France 2000 at the official reception dinner.

Elodie Gossuin, Miss France 2001

Michou, the king of the Parisian nights

Who could have believed that the graceful body of Miss France 2001 was actually that of a man?  Who didn't feel enthralled by these harmonious curves, these pure features and this angelic smile?  They are however that of a 27 year old young man, Nicolas Levanneur, dancer in a transvestite cabaret in Paris, which certainly did not imagine that he would win the bet that his friends set him over drinks late one night in 1999: to become the new Miss France. 

Nicolas, of Picardy origin, entered the Miss Picardie contest in the course of January* 2000, which he won with ease.  After that events carry him away and everything happens very fast.  "The hardest part", says Nicolas, "is to disguise my voice; I become a woman when I slip on clothes of a woman, it is my trade and I have practised it for seven years.  But my female voice requires permanent concentration." 

But his voice doesn't not betray him and he simulates emotion when he receives the victory crown from the hands of our national Alain Delon, in front of millions of television viewers:  "I even pretended to begin to faint to reinforce the credibility of the character, even though I knew that my bet was won."

If Genevieve of Fontenay remains silent, Michou, owner of the famous Transvestite Cabaret At Michou, mischievously hopes to see hundreds of unexpected new customers arriving.  "This business is amazingly good for us.  We are closed until March and Nicolas doesn't work here now, but he knows that my doors are wide open for him to carry on at the review."  Who said that Beauty Queens were bad at assuring their future?

Stéphane Rose