Miss Paris and the wrong sort of magazine spread

Perhaps the best way to describe the 77-year-old Geneviève de Fontenay to the Anglophone world is to liken her to a cross between Joan Collins and Ann Widdecombe. Her principles might be more aligned to the latter's, but in age and dress sense she is France's answer to our own Miss Collins.

For nearly 30 years de Fontenay - known in France as the 'lady in the hat' - has presided over the annual Miss France Beauty Pageant, an illustrious event in French culture. The rest of the world might have thrown out beauty contests along with Sony Walkmans and wooden tennis rackets, but in France the hunt to find the most perfect specimen of Gallic womanhood culminates in a grand television spectacle on the first weekend of December.

Last month's finale was held in Nice (and won by the flawless Miss Normandy), a location that wasn't de Fontenay's choice: the city's image of champagne and scantily-clad girls was 'inappropriate'.

And the rules are strict. It goes without saying that each of the 37 contestants should hope for world peace, but they must also be aged between 17 and 25, at least 1.70m in height, unmarried, childless and, most importantly, they are obliged to sign a statement to the effect that they have not posed in any suggestive photo shoots or videos.

Alas, this month's edition of Entrevue, a popular celebrity magazine, carries photos (above) of the delectable Miss Paris - otherwise known as Kelly Bochenko - revealing a pose that would certainly have caused a few eyebrows to raise if it had graced the swimsuit section of the Miss France contest.

"Sexuelle très explicite," is how one French paper described Bochenko's posture, although Madame de Fontenay was more to the point. "Let's not waste any pity on the sort of woman who spreads her legs like that!" she fumed, barely able to contain her fury at the third scandal in recent years to rock the once demure world of Miss France.

Laetitia Bléger, the 2004 Miss France, was stripped of her title after nude photos of her were published in Playboy, and two years ago a furore erupted after Miss France 2008, Valérie Bègue from the island of Réunion, was ordered to stand down by de Fontenay on account of a series of titillating photos, one of which involved licking yogurt off a ledge. Bègue refused, saying that she was fully clothed in the photos and hadn't authorised their publication. De Fontenay was forced to back off when she was accused in some quarters of racism.

Bochenko has no such card to play. Her only defence is that she had forgotten all about the photos, taken four years ago by an ex-boyfriend who has just sold them to Entrevue. While Bochenko threatens legal action against her ex and the magazine, she has been stripped of her Miss Paris title. She's also been scorned by the fearsome de Fontenay, who said in a recent interview: "I spent a quarter of a century with Louis de Fontenay [her late husband] and he never asked me to spread my legs for a photographer. It shows a lack of dignity, a lack of self-respect. It's certainly not love!"

For Bochenko the future looks bleak, at least in the synthetic world of beauty pageants (though the photos will do her no harm should she wish to go into the porn business). "My life is messed up," says the 23-year-old, who lists her interests on the official Miss France website as jogging and reading. "There are more important things in the world than the firing of a beauty contestant but it feels like I've killed someone. At the very least I'm going to have to change my name."

As for de Fontenay, she has vowed to carry on overseeing Miss France even though she pines for a sweeter, gentler, more innocent era. "The Miss Paris scandal reflects the society in which we live," she complained. "News-stands are packed with naked girls baring their breasts." ·