French Socialist leader Olivier Faure has rejected calls for a national tribute to the late film icon Brigitte Bardot, arguing Tuesday such homages are for “exceptional services to the nation.”
Bardot was an iconic actress but she also “turned her back on republican values” Faure argued, according to the BBC.
The left-wing pushback came after French political figure Éric Ciotti called for a nation-wide tribute to honour Bardot, prompting objections from those opposed to her political views.
“France has a duty to honour its Marianne,” said Ciotti, who leads the right-wing UDR party, referring to the emblem of French liberty whose face Bardot was chosen to represent in the 1960s.
Bardot died on Sunday aged 91, as Breitbart News reported.
A petition launched by Ciotti since has attracted more than 23,000 signatures, and has the backing of some allies on the right.
The BBC report notes Ciotti said France should recognise a woman who brought her country an extraordinary level of international recognition and actively helped in the fight for women’s liberty and abortion rights.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, has announced that his city will name an “iconic site” in Bardot’s honour.
Bardot starred in some 50 films, after bursting on to the scene in And God Created Woman in 1956.
She then left the world of cinema in 1973 for a life devoted to animal welfare, and lived for decades in Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera, at her home called La Madrague.
Bardot was known for her opposition to open borders and mass migration.
File/Brigitte Bardot, playing the role of Javotte Lemoine, waves from the shore in a scene from the 1952 French comedy Le Trou Normand. (Getty)
She argued the Judeo-Christian principles that underwrite the French Republic should never be compromised by new arrivals who spewed nothing but hate for the values of the country that give them shelter.
The BBC reported from the late 1990s, Bardot was fined multiple times for inciting “racial hatred” after comments she made online and in interviews about Muslims.
She was fined €15,000 (£12,000) in 2008 after complaining on her website that Muslims were “destroying our country by imposing their ways.”
Bardot faced further criticism for her 2003 book, A Cry in the Silence, where she argued gay people, modern art, politicians and immigrants destroyed French culture.
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