The façade of the villa that Brigitte Bardot bought years ago in La Madrague, in Saint Tropez, on the shores of the Mediterranean, has begun to fill this morning with bouquets of flowers and messages of tribute to the last living icon of French cinema of the fifties and sixties. Reactions to the death of Brigitte Bardot occur throughout the country, which mourns the loss of the “legend of the century”, a free, committed woman, an emblem of freedom or “the quintessence of France”, according to the different reactions.
“Her films, her voice, her dazzling fame, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals…”, French President Emmanuel Macron said this morning on social network
Her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. French existence, universal brilliance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) December 28, 2025
Bardot was the first personality to embody the figure of Marianne, one of the most powerful symbols of the Republic, of freedom and democracy since the French Revolution. His bust is present in buildings and public spaces and presides over the Place de la République in Paris. In 1969 the artist Alain Aslan sculpted a bust with Bardot’s face.
He has also compared it with Marianne Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally party, one of the first to react to his death. “Today the French people lose the Marianne they loved so much and whose beauty surprised the world (…). A fervent patriot and lover of animals, she embodied an entire era of French history, but also an ideal of bravery and freedom.”
“Brigitte’s death is a deep pain. France has lost an exceptional woman, notable for her talent, bravery and beauty. She was incredibly French: free, indomitable and pure of heart,” agreed the far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, for whom the actress has represented “the quintessence of France.”
The French writer Simone de Beauvoir, author of The second sex one of the fundamental works of feminism, already referred to Brigitte Bardot as “the locomotive of women’s history.” The actress “appears like a force of nature, dangerous, indomitable,” described her in an article published in Esquire in 1960.
A symbol of female emancipation, she actually left her career prematurely, before turning 40, to dedicate 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 proceeds from the sales were donated to this cause.
In 1986 she created the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, dedicated to rescuing abandoned animals: “Despite her 91 years, every day she stayed informed of pending cases, she prepared letters for politicians. She was extraordinary, out of the ordinary,” reacted the spokesperson for her foundation, Bruno Jacquelin.
“Icon, a Marianne, “His initials BB went around the world, with his insolent beauty and his total freedom,” said the Minister of Equality, Aurore Bergé. The Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, said that he was “the icon among icons.” “A legend that helped shape our imagination. Indomitably free and, ultimately, very French.”
Bardot was the last living icon of French cinema of the time, after the death of Alain Delon, in August 2024, or Jean-Paul Belmondo, in 2021. Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the Cannes festival, told the France Info network that Bardot “built and defined the codes of what it meant to be a star and a celebrity worldwide.” And he pointed out: “Sometimes we have underestimated in France what Bardot represented abroad, in the sixties in particular. It was a total myth.”
Within the reactions of the world of culture, the filmmaker Claude Lelouch, 88, has highlighted the role that the actress had in the construction of the French identity: “She was more than an actress, she was France. General (Charles) De Gaulle told me one day: France is me and Brigitte Bardot.”
Proof of that freedom and that indomitable character that he defended to the point of ending his career to dedicate himself to animals, Lelouch has confessed how he unsuccessfully tried to shoot a film with Belmondo and the actress as the protagonist and what his refusal was like: “She told me that she didn’t like movies too much because you have to pretend, and she didn’t like pretending.”
