Miss France 2021 Contestant Faces Anti-Semitic Insults After Revealing Israeli Roots

The pageant was held on 19 December among 29 entrants and saw Amandine Petit representing the Normandy region gain the crown, while April Benayoum from Provence was named the 1st runner-up. Benayoum's moment of glory, however, was shadowed by online harassment related to her ethnic background.

The first runner-up of the Miss France 2021 beauty pageant, April Benayoum, has faced a deluge of online insults since revealing that her father was Israeli-Italian.

Following the revelation, internet users launched anti-Semitic attacks against the 21-year-old Miss Provence which were noticed and strongly condemned by several Jewish organisations.

StopAntisemitism.org and the Union of Jewish Students of France were both abhorred by the online abuse against Benayoum.

https://twitter.com/StopAntisemites/status/1340503239993769996

https://twitter.com/uejf/status/1340424345240408067

Miss France 2021 is no longer a beauty contest but an anti-Semitism contest. The reason: the surname of Miss Provence who called herself "Italian-Israeli". And that's enough to provoke an anti-Semitic hater mob.

The president of the Unified Jewish Social Fund (FSJU) applauded Benayoum's courage to reveal her ancestry.

https://twitter.com/GOLDMANNAriel/status/1340415082883387399

Miss Provence has the courage, yes the courage, to say that her father is Israeli, and anti-Zionist racists got unleashed on so-called social networks! What a shame. Good luck, April Benayoum.

Yvelines deputy Aurore Bergé described the anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist hatred against the model as insufferable.

https://twitter.com/auroreberge/status/1340415862541594624

The contest took place on 19 December in the Pays de la Loire region of France. The winner of this year's contest was Amandine Petit from Normandy.

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