Miss France May Be Stripped of Crown

Miss France 2004 risks being stripped of her title after revealing pictures of her were published in the May edition of Playboy, the contest's organiser, Genevieve de Fontenay, said yesterday.

Saying she was "shocked and devastated" by the publication of the semi-nude pictures of Laetitia Bléger, Ms de Fontenay said an extraordinary disciplinary committee meeting "within the next few days" would decide on an appropriate response towards the 24-year-old flight attendant.

She added that the competition's rules stated clearly that "no photographs that could in any way be deemed licentious" could be published of a Miss France during the year of her coronation or five years afterwards. Anyone found guilty of breaching the rules could be relieved of her crown and made to return her prizes.

"We cannot let this go," Ms de Fontenay said. "Miss France has a certain status that must be defended."

Ms Bléger was not available for comment last night and her website was closed.

The scandal of the images in the French edition of Playboy is by no means the first to hit the contest, which has been run with an iron hand since the 1950s by the imposing Ms de Fontenay.

Miss France 1983, Isabelle Turpeaut, was stripped of her title after she posed rather too suggestively for Paris-Match.

More recently, the 2002 winner, Sylvie Tellier, was accused of being too short by a disgruntled rival who was herself disqualified after she revealed that she did not meet the minimum 1.7 metre (5ft 7in) height requirement but was planning to have her spine stretched.

That spat followed embarrassment in 2001 when a satirical website insisted the title holder, Elodie Gossuin, was a man - a 27-year-old transvestite cabaret dancer named Nicolas Levanneur.

This claim prompted a "close inspection" during the swimsuit and ballgown fittings at the subsequent Miss Universe competition.