Miss France 'pixie haircut' winner Eve Gilles reveals she STRETCHED her body to meet the 5ft 7in entry requirements... as pictures emerge of her VERY long hair as a child

The newly crowned Miss France at the centre of a woke row about pixie hair had to stretch her under-sized body so as to enter the contest.

Revelations about 20-year-old Eve Gilles's struggle to fulfil her lifetime ambition to be a beauty queen emerged after she was attacked for looking too boyish.

Critics said the kind of long hair favoured by previous winners – and Gallic female icons such as Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve – would have been far more appropriate than a short pixie bob.

Eve hit back, saying: 'We're used to seeing beautiful Misses with long hair, but I chose an androgynous look with short hair.'

Following her triumph on Saturday night, she said it was a win for woke 'diversity', and that 'no one should dictate who you are'.

As the debate about acceptable feminine looks raged, Eve said she was used to being 'body shamed', and even faced exclusion from Miss France for being too small.

Entrants to the prestigious contestants need to be at least 5.57ft (1.7m) but Eva was only 5.56ft (1.695m).

The youngster from Quaedypre – a village near Dunkirk – said she accordingly 'regained the missing millimetres through stretching'.

A picture first published in Eve's local paper, La Voix du Nord (Voice of the North), shows her beaming for the camera as a girl, while dressed up as a beauty queen.

'I dreamed of being a Miss since I was little,' she said, but 'as I got older I didn't really know how to start,' and wanted to feel 'good in my body, good in my head'.

But when photos were published of her in a swimsuit during a location shoot in Guyana, the nastiness intensified.

'I was hit by a wave of body-shaming,' she said. 'I stopped looking at these comments saying that I am thin, that I have no shape, this thing, that thing.

'Being criticised about my hair doesn't bother me, I chose it like that and I can change it.

'But I don't choose my body. I don't choose my shapes. The metabolism that I have, I don't choose it.

'These are things that we learn to live with the, and I don't understand how we can criticise something that we can't change.'

Eve was born in Dunkirk, and grew up with her surveyor father, Bruno Gilles, her mother, Edith Gilles, and two older sisters – all of whom helped her cope with the pressure.

'My family is really very important,' said Eve. 'It's my little cocoon. We are very close. We did everything together.'

After high school in Dunkirk, Eve wanted to become a neurologist, before switching her university studies from medicine to maths and computer studies.

She worked for a year at an egg factory, and now wants to become a statistician.

'The path doesn't matter, the important thing is the arrival,' she said in an interview with French media on Monday.

'Two years ago, I worked in a factory to make some money and today I am Miss France. You have to give yourself the means to succeed and believe in your dreams.'

Asked if she thought beauty contests were in themselves dated, Eve replied: 'My answer is that if it's cheesy, then why do so many people continue to watch?

'If it's corny, why do so many girls keep showing up? This is a huge opportunity for us. For me, Miss France also embodies a part of feminism. These are young women who decided themselves to take part.'

Complaints flooded social media after the Miss France judges overrode a public vote to crown Eve in the pageant, which was watched by seven million viewers.

The public, whose vote counted for 50 per cent, put Miss Guiana and Miss Guadeloupe ahead of Eve but critics claimed the all-female judging panel was motivated by wokeness.

No short-haired woman had even reached the final of the 103-year-old pageant before.

Angry comments on Twitter/X included: 'She doesn't look anything like a Miss France', and 'We don't care about her haircut but the ­androgynous body is obviously there to serve as woke'.

Miss France organisers meanwhile hailed the choice as a victory for the kind of diversity the contest has been striving for in the face of feminist attacks since the 1970s.

Last year it opened the contest to transgender women, but maintained the 5ft 7in height qualification.

During their 12-month reign as Miss France, winners are not allowed to gain weight, display tattoos or – crucially – change their hairstyle.

Eve's victory comes after a Paris court ordered broadcasters to compensate two previous Miss France finalists for secretly filming them and showing their bare breasts on air.