On the eve of her 80th birthday, the former actress gave an interview to Paris Match, in which she reaffirms her support for the Front National
It might be strange to think, but far away from the heady days of Saint Tropez in the 1960s, Brigitte Bardot is on the front page of leading society magazine Paris Match. The iconic actress is about to celebrate her 80th birthday and it’s a chance for her to reappraise… to have people talk about her again. In the middle of a short interview with Christian Brincourt in the latest edition of the magazine about her film career, some questions are asked about her political opinions.
Bardot is nothing if not fearless in expressing her opinions, no matter how unpopular they might be and she doesn’t disappoint on this occasion:
“I wish for Marine Le Pen to save France. She’s the Joan of Arc of the 21st century!”
Marine Le Pen is the current leader of the far-right party the Front National. While she has recently distanced herself from her father (and founder of the the FN), she is nonetheless fully committed to the ultra-nationalist agenda set by Jean-Marie Le Pen.
This is not the first time that the former screen siren has publicly declared her affection for the FN. In 2012, she declared in the columns of Nice Matin that she would vote for Marine Le Pen in the first round of the presidential elections and said that, for her, Le Pen was the only candidate “who went so far as condemning the scandal of Halal meat.” This position was widely reported by the various media in France leading to Ms Bardot being condemned on several fronts for “incitement to racial hatred”, particularly in 2004, following the publication of her book “Un Cri dans la Silence” (a Cry in the Silence), in which she expressed views with regard to immigrants and Muslims that many judged to be outrageous.
“I continue to shock those of simple minds, the mediocre and the sectarian,” she says in the Paris Match interview. “I’ll continue to say what I think for as long as I live, whether people like it or not.”
As a public personage, she is not alone in supporting Marine Le Pen’s brand of politics. On the 9th of October last, 60s cinema heartthrob Alain Delon also declared himself a supporter of the FN in the Swiss daily Le Matin, a few days after he had used the platform of the France 5 television show “C à Vous” to declare that homosexual marriage was “against nature”.