"CRAN president Louis-Georges Tin said in a statement jointly issued by Miss Black France creator, Fred Royer: 'The failure to represent the contemporary French population in an event such as this is obviously serious.
'It amounts to denying the very existence of French people of African origin.'
But Didier Maisto, editor of Lyon Capitale, a website based in Miss Lorphelin's home region of Burgundy, told The Times: 'These types of comments, which are violently anti-Republican, seek to set French people against each other.'"
