Applause is on the air.
The audience in the room sorely absent.
Ultimate setback of a Miss France final this Saturday night which has seen many twists and turns.
"Until the end, until the end ... We had to fight for this show to take place," sighs a member of the organization, exhausted after a year of battles to maintain this 2021 election, largely shaken by the epidemic of Covid-19.
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It is the amusement park of Puy-du-Fou, closed to the public, which hosts the TF1 show on an idea of Sylvie Tellier, the patron saint of the Misses, very attached to the place as a Vendée.
First announced with an audience of 500 people, with site employees in particular, then 300 the day before, the event must be satisfied with a few dozen relatives, by order of the prefecture.
Finally, it is an assembly of 86 people who can attend in the stands the spectacle of more than three hours.
Not enough to fill the huge arena which in principle welcomes 3,200 spectators.
Counter-order, one hour from the live
"The prefect of Vendée has just decided that we will be a program completely behind closed doors, confirms Sylvie Tellier, already in an evening dress with golden sequins, a few seconds before she appears at the 20 Hours of TF1 to announce the ceremony .
We only learned about it an hour before the live.
Some regional delegates who made the trip are already there, like the family members of the pretenders,
two maximum per candidate.
They are also there to bring home the girls who do not leave with the crown on Sunday morning.
Nobody, strictly nobody can stay backstage, there are only black curtains behind the stage ”
All these little people are therefore found, during the ceremony on the first balcony of the room, in the half-light, despite the sequined dresses of some spectators.
They are not filmed on air.
A few meters away, in another building called "the Orange Grove", the companions of the former Miss are placed far from the show.
There, a few chairs are installed, one meter apart from each other.
And to enforce the latest sanitary measures, many police cars are circling the establishment to monitor the situation.
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Earlier, at the end of the afternoon, the sequence where the regional delegates take the stage, was recorded so that they do not go backstage during the live, and to avoid back and forth.
Last rebound, at 9:10 pm, the press officers of TF1 announced to the twenty journalists present that they finally no longer had the right to sit in the stands, which were largely empty "by order of the prefect".
Permanent changes, orders and counter-orders creating a very funny atmosphere, like the year 2020.