Ouhlala, Miss France faces legal action!

It can sometimes be a tough job being a beauty queen.

Just ask last year's Miss France, Valérie Bègue (the former Miss Réunion) who was involved in a tussle with the doyenne of the organising committee, Geneviève de Fontenay, after “suggestive” photographs appeared in a monthly magazine shortly after her election in December 2007.

Bègue was allowed to retain her title but banned from representing France at international competitions.

And now her successor, 19-Year-old Chloé Mortaud, could be facing a similar fate, but for quite different reasons.

It's a long and convoluted tale - of course - and one that's only slowly unravelling. But here's the story so far.

Mortaud, you might or might not remember, was crowned Miss France 2009 back on December 6 last year.

You can read all about her victory here if you're up for it.

Born and brought up in France, Mortaud actually holds dual French-US nationality.

She’s of mixed race (or métisse as the French say – as was Bègue) with a French father and an African-American mother from Mississippi who emigrated to France 25 years ago.

So Mortaud is in every sense of the word very much a French-American Miss and even attended the inauguration of the US president, Barack Obama, back in January.

Indeed she popped up on French television screens during the proceedings, rather tearfully expressing her pride.

At the election for Miss France she represented the region of Albigeois-Midi-Pyrénées in the southwest of the country, where she qualified back in September 2008.

And that's apparently where her problems started.

Her runner-up at that election, Marine Beaury, claimed in an interview with a magazine - ironically enough the very same glossy monthly that had been Bègue's undoing a year earlier - that the vote had been rigged.

Some members of the jury, she maintained, had close personal ties to Mortaud's parents and that contravened the regulations of the competition.

Her claims were rejected by the organisers of the regional pageant, but Beaury didn't let the matter lie there.

She got in touch with a group which represents disgruntled ex-Misses in France - yes such a thing exists, "Collectif des Miss en colère" and the upshot is that the case is going to court.

It's due to be heard on April 27 - a date for your diaries (if you're interested) and it could result in Mortaud being stripped of her title AND having to return any prize money she earned or give back gifts she received.

So the challenge at the moment isn't coming from any of her 35 other competitors in the Miss France contest in December, but from one who is disputing Mortaud's eligibility to have been representing her region in the first place.

But wait, that's not the end of the story (don't groan). There's more, but there again there would be, wouldn't there?

You see Mortaud's election in December was decided by a combination of votes from viewers 'phoning in to choose their "favourite" and a hand-picked seven-strong celebrity jury.

Now another magazine, Télé 2 Semaines, says it has got its hands on information which reveals that Mortaud only won because she had the backing of that panel.

It claims that Mortaud only garnered 40,000 of the public's 'phone-in vote, placing her fourth of the five finalists. That was almost half the votes received by the runner-up, Camille Cheyere (Miss Lorraine) and the third-placed Élodie Martineau (Miss Pays de Loire).

In effect it was the vote of the seven-strong jury that tipped the balance in her favour, says the magazine, raising even more doubt as to whether Mortaud should even have been crowned the winner.

It wouldn't be the first time such a turnaround has happened in the final according to the magazine. Back in 2006 when that year's Miss France, Alexandra Rosenfeld, finished plumb last of the five finalists among the public's vote, she found herself elevated to the crown by the vote of the jury.

So even if the court decides in April that the disgruntled Misses don't have a case against Mortaud, the rumblings about whether she should be the reigning Miss France could well continue.

Ouhlala indeed!