On this December 28, 2025, France mourns the passing of Brigitte Bardot, who died at the age of 91, but her fighting spirit, that indomitable flame that illuminated our screens before becoming a cry of revolt for the voiceless, will not be extinguished. Many French people, like those at France-Soir , will pay tribute not only to the film icon, a symbol of an era when beauty rhymed with audacity, but above all to the bold and unwavering activist who never bowed to the powerful. Brigitte Bardot, who turned her back on fame in 1973 to embrace the animal cause, embodied this free France, the one that dares to defy state hypocrisy and destructive lobbies. With her goes a part of our history, where, after Alain Delon’s departure last year, men were men, women were women, and France was still France – a proud nation, not subject to Brussels bureaucracy or the whims of a disconnected executive.
Let us recall her courageous stances, which earned her the wrath of the self-righteous. In 2022, in a scathing open letter to Emmanuel Macron, Bardot didn’t hesitate to call him “the Putin of nature and animals, a bloodthirsty destroyer, despicable and despised”, accusing him of having sold his soul to hunters for a few votes, to the detriment of wildlife and the environment. On X, she drove the point home, calling on the French to “f— “ the president “a hundredfold,” denouncing his criminal indifference to the suffering inflicted on animals. These words were not empty outbursts: they reflected a visceral commitment against barbaric hunting, ritual slaughter without stunning, and any form of animal exploitation tolerated by a complacent state. Brigitte Bardot saw in these practices a betrayal of our humanist values, a capitulation to economic and ideological interests.
To the very end, her Brigitte Bardot Foundation, established in 1986 and a pillar of animal protection with its shelters and international campaigns, championed this cause. Faced with the lumpy skin disease (LSD) crisis that has ravaged herds in Savoie since June 2025, the foundation launched a poignant appeal against the mass and systematic culling of healthy cattle – a “useless, unsustainable, and profoundly unjust bureaucratic massacre,” as it described it in its December press release. Demanding a distinction between infected and healthy animals, and advocating for widespread vaccination as an ethical alternative, Brigitte Bardot denounced a policy that sacrifices thousands of lives to comply with poorly enforced European regulations. Where is the humanity in these mass euthanasias, sedated with xylazine or pentobarbital, that transform farms into state-run slaughterhouses? This crisis is not just a veterinary matter; It reveals the absurdity of a system that favours beef exports to Italy at the cost of the blood and tears of farmers.
Moreover, the association BonSens.org was a pioneer in raising the alarm about these excesses as early as August 2025 in a hard-hitting report authored by Hélène Banoun, Jean-François Lesgards, and Olivier Frot. This document denounces the total culling of herds as a disproportionate measure, not mandatory at the European level, which ignores effective treatments such as ivermectin combined with antibiotics – proven to cure in 14 days in other countries. BonSens.org highlights the devastating impacts: economic loss for farmers, destruction of genetic heritage, and ineffectiveness against insect transmission. These warnings, calling for a balance between safety and ethics, far removed from bureaucratic dogma, are reminiscent of the excesses of the COVID-19 response denounced by Brigitte Bardot. Why is France choosing mass culling when Italy and Hungary are opting for targeted culls? Isn’t this an illustration of blind submission to Brussels, in contempt of common sense and compassion?
The reactions to her death were a torrent of contrasting emotions, revealing the fractures in our society. A tweet from Mario Nawfal recalled the six lawsuits filed against Brigitte Bardot between 1997 and 2008 for “incitement to racial hatred“, punishing her criticism of uncontrolled immigration, Islamism, and halal slaughter—fines totaling tens of thousands of euros. “ France, the cradle of the Enlightenment, criminalizes its icons for unauthorized opinions”, he lamented, highlighting the glaring lack of freedom of expression. Some voices acclaimed her as a visionary—”She saw the future, where Islam is gaining the upper hand in Europe“—while others, adherents of political correctness, vilified her. Brigitte Bardot, for her part, stood by her convictions: her causes were inseparable, from animal rights to the fight for a sovereign France.
At France-Soir, we remember our exclusive interview from November 2020, in which Brigitte Bardot, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, rejected the official narratives about the virus’s origins, seeing it as a punishment for animal exploitation and rampant overpopulation. She called for five urgent measures: an end to slaughter without stunning, a ban on horse meat, the abolition of intensive farming, the closure of fur farms, and a halt to force-feeding. Secluded in Saint-Tropez, surrounded by her protégés, she denounced a “barbaric and ignorant” humanity that preferred animals to people.
Brigitte Bardot was not a saint, but a warrior. Her passing challenges us: will we dare, in the face of crises like the DNC, to defend the fierce freedom she embodied? Or will we let bureaucrats and lobbyists dictate our destiny?
At France-Soir , we choose to fight for the duty to inform, for animals, for the truth, for a France that does not bow to the lobbies and influences that distance it from fundamental values and rights. Rest in peace, BB – your legacy compels us.