Bardot faces new racial hatred case over slurs
Brigitte Bardot faces a new prosecution for inciting racial hatred, after describing the inhabitants of a French island in the Indian Ocean as degenerates and savages.
The one-time poster girl of French cinema criticised the residents of Reunion over their treatment of animals, and likened the Hindu community on the island to cannibals.
Bardot, 84, who became an animal welfare campaigner after the end of her film career, made the remarks in an open letter to the French government’s representative on the island.
She called upon Amaury de Saint-Quentin, the island’s prefect, to take legal action against locals allegedly guilty of cruelty to animals.
Instead, de Saint-Quentin has filed a lawsuit against Bardot for alleged incitement to racial hatred – an offence for which she has five previous convictions.
In the letter, Bardot, who is a supporter of France’s far-Right National Rally party, claimed that animals were treated worse on Reunion than in metropolitan France, or in any of the country’s other overseas territories.
She claimed that cats and dogs were poisoned by locals, and that goats were decapitated during ‘‘Indian Tamil’’ festivities, which appeared to be a reference to the Hindus who make up 25 per cent of Reunion’s 866,000 population.
‘‘All that is reminiscent of the cannibalism of past centuries and should be stopped,’’ she said. ‘‘The natives have kept their genes of savages, but French laws are meant to be respected.
‘‘I am ashamed of this island, of the savagery which reigns there, of the risks taken by human beings who try to save cats and dogs targeted by this degenerate population still impregnated by the ancestral customs and barbaric traditions.’’
The former actress, best known for roles in such films as the 1956 hit And God Created Woman, has come under fire in recent years, notably for attacking Muslim treatment of animals. She was fined €15,000 in 2008 for inciting racial and religious hatred, her most recent conviction. – The Times