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Post by Admin on Nov 10, 2021 20:02:05 GMT
French screen legend Brigitte Bardot, 87, was on Thursday fined €20,000 by a court in La Reunion, France's department in the Indian Ocean, over a 2019 letter where she described its inhabitants as "savages". In March 2019, Brigitte Bardot, who created a foundation bearing her name and working to protect animals, sent an open letter to Amaury de Saint-Quentin, then police chief of Reunion island, in response to what she saw as the mistreatment of animals by its inhabitants. "The natives have kept their savage genes," the animal rights campaigner wrote, attacking the islanders for their treatment of animals, describing locals as "degenerate savages". She took aim at the island's Hindu Tamil population for sacrificing goats, evoking the "cannibalism of past centuries" as she lashed "a degenerate population still soaked in barbarous ancestral traditions". MP Jean-Hugues Ratenon (France Unbowed party), several French anti-racist associations as well as Hindu religious associations and groups had then filed a complaint against the former actress. France's then overseas territories minister Annick Girardin also told her in a letter at the time after her comments "that racism is not an opinion, it's an offence". Bardot later apologised, justifying her anger by what she considered to be the "tragic fate" of animals on the island. Her spokesman Bruno Jacquelin was also fined on Thursday by the court in the main town of Saint-Denis de la Reunion €4,000 for his role in sending the statement to several media outlets at her request.
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Post by Admin on Nov 10, 2021 21:42:56 GMT
Brigitte Bardot was fined €20,000 — or about $23,060.20 — for calling the people of La Reunion "savages." On Thursday, the French actress was sentenced by the judicial court of Saint-Denis, Le Figaro reported. The 87-year-old’s press secretary, Bruno Jacquelin, was also fined €4,000 – or 4,612.04. The outlet noted that at the request of the star, he previously forwarded the letter in question to several media outlets, including AFP (Agence France-Presse), the international news agency in Paris. In 2019, Bardot wrote an open letter where she referred to the Indian Ocean islanders as "natives who still have savage genes" and "degenerate savages" in response to how they treat animals. She specifically targeted the Hindu Tamil population, describing them as "a degenerate population still soaked in barbarous ancestral traditions" for "sacrificing goats" and using the "cannibalism of past centuries," The Telegraph reported. In response to her statements, former Minister of Overseas Territories Annick Girardin wrote a letter to the actress, stating, "Racism is not an opinion, it is a crime," Le Figaro reported. A spokesperson for Bardot didn’t immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment. This isn’t the first time that the animal rights activist has faced legal woes over allegations of racism. In 2008, Bardot was on trial for insulting Muslims. It was the fifth time, she faced the charge of "inciting racial hatred" over her controversial comments about Islam and its followers, Reuters reported. The outlet also revealed Bardot has previously said France is being invaded by "sheep-slaughtering" Muslims and published a book attacking gays, immigrants and the unemployed, in which she also lamented the "Islamisation of France." The former model founded Foundation Brigitte Bardot in 1986 where she aimed to take on "a leading role in the fight for animal causes in France and around the world."
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Post by Admin on Nov 11, 2021 22:13:17 GMT
Brigitte Bardot is one of those stars who – like Marilyn Monroe – has been weaved into the fabric of popular culture. Not only was she one of the French cinema’s most sought-after actresses – appearing in a Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt and Roger Vadim’s Et Dieu Crea La Femme to name just two – but she also had an illustrious singing career that saw her join forces with Serge Gainsbourg to record the original (and subsequently banned) version of ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’ before Jane Birkin re-recorded it a couple of years later. Bardot was the modern aphrodite of the late 1950s and ’60s, a symbol of a new kind of female sexuality, one that – just a decade earlier – had scarcely seemed imaginable. Bardot wore her beauty on her sleeve, embracing her sex appeal in a way that was quietly revolutionary at the time. As a result, she became one of the most desired and talked-about women on the planet. Her strength of character was so powerful, in fact, that she attracted Bob Dylan’s attention, inspiring the first song he ever wrote – the appropriately named ‘Song For Brigitte’. The track – which has never been released – was written when Dylan was just 15. As you would expect from an adolescent, the song is, at its core, a song of love, or perhaps of desire – it’s impossible to know for sure. What we do know is that Dylan briefly mentioned the track in a 1966 Playboy interview, where he was asked to describe the first song he wrote: “I don’t recall too much of it,” he replied. “It had only one chord. Well, it is all in the heart.” All in the heart indeed. Although we only have Dylan’s recollection to go on, it’s pretty clear that ‘Song For Brigitte’ was written as a love song for the French Actress. I wonder if Bardot ever knew how much impact she made on the world of popular music. After all, she was the subject of the ‘Blowin In The Wind’ songwriter’s first musical venture. In that same Playboy interview, Dylan describes how he “saved the money I had made working on my daddy’s truck and bought a Silvertone guitar from Sears Roebuck. I was 12. I just bought a book of chords and began to play.” ‘Song For Brigitte’ soon followed. However, a self-penned pamphlet from Dylan’s first concert at Carnegie Hall states that the song was originally written for another instrument: “I started writing my own songs about four or five years ago,” it reads. “First song was to Brigitte Bardot, for piano. Thought if I wrote the song I’d sing it to her one day. Never met her.” Indeed, being on opposite sides of the Atlantic, Dylan and Bardot never did end up meeting one another in their heyday – rather they communicated with one another through subtle messages hidden in their songs and films. The same year that Dylan revealed his affection for Bardot, the actress appeared in Godard’s French new-wave classic Masculin Féminin, which makes a number of references to figures from pop culture, including Bob Dylan himself. Dylan also referenced Bardot in his 1963 song ‘I Shall Be Free’ from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, in which he sings the line: “Well, my telephone rang it would not stop/It’s President Kennedy callin’ me up/He said, ‘My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the/country grow?’/ I said, ‘My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot.'”
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