Miss Provence, April Benayoum, the runner-up of the Miss France 2021 competition that was held on Saturday, December 19, has been subjected to a torrent of anti-Semitic abuse on social media, promoting outrage and a police investigation.
April Benayoum, 21, was awarded second place in the pageant during a televised ceremony on Saturday and she revealed her Israeli origins in an interview at the event, leading to anti-Semitic attacks on Twitter.
Antisemitism refers to hostility to, prejudice, or discrimination against Jews and a person who holds such positions is called an antisemite.
The tweets which cannot be published on LIB due to it’s sensitive nature were widely condemned by French politicians and Jewish groups.
In an interview with the Var-Matin newspaper on Sunday, December 20, Ms Benayoum said she heard about the anti-Jewish insults from her relatives.
“It is sad to witness such behaviour in 2020,” said Ms Benayoum.
“I obviously condemn these comments, but it does not affect me at all.”
France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said he was “deeply shocked by the rain of anti-Semitic insults” against Ms Benayoum.
“We must not let anything go,” he wrote in a tweet, adding that police were looking into the abusive tweets.
Minister of Citizenship Marlène Schiappa tweeted that the beauty competition was “not a contest of anti-Semitism”.
Renaud Muselier, a former French member of the European Parliament from the Provence region, called the attacks an “abomination”. He emphasised that Ms Benayoum was “French, of Italian and Israeli origin, from Provence, from the south”, which means she “perfectly represents our region and our country”.
The organisers of the competition denounced the “hate speech” against Ms Benayoum, saying it was “totally contrary to the values of the channel, the production and the show”.
Amandine Petit, or Miss Normandy, was crowned Miss France 2021 winner, beating a field of 29 contestants to win a cash prize, use of a Paris apartment and a monthly salary for one year. She told France’s BFM TV the “inappropriate remarks” were “extremely disappointing” to see.
The International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra) said the Miss France competition had “turned Twitter into an anti-Semitic cesspool against Miss Provence”.
France, which has Europe’s biggest Jewish population of around half a million, has seen an increase in number of anti-Semitic attacks in recent years.
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