23-year-old Iris Mittenaere who is a dental student from a small town of Lille in northern France has won the Miss Universe crown this Monday in the annual pageant held in the Philippines host of the competition.

The new queen who was full of shock when she was announced as winner among the field of 86 contestants. She had earlier said in response to a final question from the host of the pageant Steve Harvey that she would be honored if she only landed among the three finalists.

Mittenaere was taken by shock as she stood speechless while placing her hands on her face as the outgoing winner from the Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach, crowned her in front of the crowd at the packed Mall of Asia Arena by Manila Bay.


In their final question, the top three finalists, were asked to cite a failure in their life and explain what they learned from the experience.

“I’ve failed several times in my life,” Mittenaere replied without much explanation. “when you fail, you have to be elevated and you have to try again and keep going … I have failed before but for me this is the great first opportunity.” she concluded.

Miss Haiti, Raquel Pelissier, a 25-year-old who is also a survivor of the devastating 2010 earthquake that destroyed her hometown, was named the first runner up while Miss Colombia, 23-year-old, Andrea Tovar, was named second runner up.

“I survived the earthquake,” Pelissier said in reply to the same question, citing the quake the Haiti government estimated to have killed more than 300,000 people and displaced more than 1.5 million others. “I felt I was failing myself because I was not living my dreams … But I chose to be a very positive person, and learned a great lesson from it because if I am here today, it is because I am living my dreams.”

Perhaps the critical moment of the ceremony came when the American comedian host declared: “This is Steve Harvey, I got it right,” referring in jest to the last pageant in Las Vegas more than a year ago when he erroneously announcement Miss Colombia as the winner in the competition instead of Miss Philippines Pia Wurtzbach.

Mittenaere may be the winner tonight but Steve Harvey, could also be regarded as a co-winner considering the fact that he had the chance to redeem his image after his blunder during the last event.

Source: http://dambela.com/2017/01/30/miss-france-crowned-miss-universe-philippines/