PARIS.- The facade of the villa Brigitte Bardot It was bought years ago in La Madrague, in Saint Tropez, on the shores of the Mediterranean, and this morning work began to fill it with bouquets of flowers and messages of homage to the last living icon of French cinema of the fifties and sixties.
There are different reactions to the death of Brigitte Bardot across the country, which is mourning the loss of the “legend of the century”, a free, committed woman, a symbol of freedom or “the quintessence of France”.
“His films, his voice, his dazzling fame, his concerns, his generous passion for animals…” said the French president on a social network this morning Emmanuel Macronwhich highlighted that Bardot’s face “became synonymous with Marianne: she embodied a life of freedom. A typically French existence (…) We mourn the legend of the century.”
Bardot was the first person to embody the figure of Marianne, one of the most powerful symbols of the Republic, freedom and democracy since the French Revolution. His bust is present in buildings and public spaces and characterizes the Place de la République in Paris. In 1969, artist Alain Aslan created a bust with Bardot’s face.
He also compared her to Marianne Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally party, one of the first to react to her death. “Today the French are losing Marianne, whom they loved so much and whose beauty amazed the world (…). An ardent patriot and animal lover, she embodied an entire era of French history, but also an ideal of bravery and freedom.”
The farewell of right-wing extremist leader Marine Le Pen came from the same political spectrum: “Brigitte’s death is a deep pain. France has lost an extraordinary woman who stood out for her talent, her courage and her beauty. She was an incredible Frenchwoman: free, indomitable and pure of heart.”
The French writer Simone de Beauvoir, author of The second genderOne of the fundamental works of feminism, Brigitte Bardot already described it as “the locomotive of women’s history”. The actress “seems like a force of nature, dangerous, indomitable,” described her in an article published in the magazine esquirein 1960.
A symbol of female emancipation, she actually gave up her career prematurely before she turned 40 to devote herself to another cause: that of animals. In a recent interview she said that for her the situation of animals “is more important than the situation of women”. In 1982 he recorded two songs, “All Animals Deserve to Be Loved” and “The Hunt”, and the proceeds from sales were donated to this cause. In 1986, she founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, dedicated to rescuing abandoned animals: “Despite her 91 years, she kept abreast of pending cases every day and prepared letters for politicians. She was extraordinary, extraordinary,” explained her foundation’s spokesman, Bruno Jacquelin.
“An icon, a Marianne, her initials BB went around the world with her outrageous beauty and her complete freedom,” said Equality Minister Aurore Bergé today about Bardot. Culture Minister Rachida Dati added that he was “the icon among icons.” “A legend that has shaped our imagination. Indomitably free and ultimately very French.”
Bardot was the last living icon of French cinema of the period, following the deaths of Alain Delon in August 2024 and Jean-Paul Belmondo in 2021. Thierry Frémaux, artistic director of the Cannes festival, told the network France info that Bardot “constructed and defined the codes of what it means to be a star and a global celebrity.” And he noted: “Sometimes in France we underestimated what Bardot represented abroad, especially in the 1960s. It was a total myth.”
Within the reactions of the world of culture, of filmmakers Claude Lelouch88, highlighted the role the actress played in the construction of French identity: “She was more than an actress, she was France. General (Charles) De Gaulle said to me one day: ‘France is me and Brigitte Bardot.’
As an example of this freedom and indomitable character that he defended until he ended his career to devote himself to animals, Lelouch told how he tried unsuccessfully to make a film with Belmondo and the actress as the protagonist, and what his refusal looked like: “She told me that she didn’t like films so much because you had to pretend, and that she didn’t like pretending.”
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