By BRUCE CRUMLEY/PARIS
Time Magazine
http://www.time.com
Tuesday, Apr. 15, 2008
BRIGITTE BARDOT, SPAIN, 1971
She may be better remembered as the revolutionary sex kitten of 1960s French cinema, but these days Brigitte Bardot is better known as a standard-bearer of the anti-immigrant wing of France's political spectrum. Bardot went on trial Tuesday charged with "inciting racial hatred," and in view of her four previous convictions on similar charges, prosecutors sought exceptionally stiff penalties of $22,000 and a two month suspended sentence.
"I'm a bit tired of trying Madame Bardot," admitted assistant prosecutor Anne de Fonette, as she urged the court to impose "the most striking and remarkable" punishment in the case. A verdict is expected on June 3.
The current charge against Bardot was lodged by the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP), citing a letter Bardot wrote to French officials in 2004 in which she alluded to Muslims as "this population that leads us around by the nose, [and] which destroys our country." The former actress-turned-animal rights crusader had written that letter to protest the ritual slaughter of sheep during the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Kabir. Her missive, whose contents were later leaked to the media, had been sent to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whose rising popularity was based in part on his hard line on immigration and tough stand against troublesome youths from immigrant backgrounds.
Lawyers for the 73 year-old Bardot, who did not attend the trial, argued the offending sections of the letter had been taken out of the context of her militant defense of animal rights over the years, a cause in support of which she has raised and spent millions of dollars. Her work in the area has been hailed by French political leaders and organizations around the world, although more recently French courts have interpreted some of her statements as Islamophobia.
Bardot's defense Tuesday was that her passionate denunciation of the ritual slaughter of Eid-al-Kabir had been misinterpreted as an attack on Islam in France. A similar defense had failed to spare her from conviction in four earlier trials. In 1997, for example, Bardot was first convicted on the charge of "inciting racial hatred" for her open letter to French daily Le Figaro, complaining of "foreign over-population", mostly by Muslim families.
The following year she was convicted anew for decrying the loss of French identity and tradition due to the multiplication of mosques "while our church bells fall silent for want of priests." Darkening Bardot's public image in both cases was her marriage to an active supporter and political ally of French National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.
In 2000, Bardot was again convicted — this time for comments in her book Pluto's Square, whose chapter "Open Letter to My Lost France" grieved for "...my country, France, my homeland, my land is again invaded by an overpopulation of foreigners, especially Muslims." And in 2004, another Bardot book, A Cry In the Silence, again took up the question of immigration and Islam — ultimately running afoul of anti-racism laws by generally associating Islam with the 9/11 terror attacks, and denouncing the "Islamization of France" by people she described as "invaders".
The prosecution has called for the harshest possible punishment in the hope of getting through to Bardot the seriousness of her transgressions of French law. MRAP implored the judge to "take note of this refusal by (Bardot) to learn the lessons of previous convictions and cease using racist language". The court will make its decision by June, although the repeat convictions on similar charges suggest that Bardot has not exactly been chastened by previous court rulings.
Brigitte Bardot in race hate row
By Henry Samuel in Paris
London Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Last Updated: 2:07am BST 16/04/2008
Brigitte Bardot, now an animal rights activist, has been convicted four times since 1997 on similar charges.
A Paris prosecutor yesterday called for French film legend Brigitte Bardot to receive a two-month suspended prison sentence and a £12,000 fine for inciting racial hatred in a letter.
In December 2006, Miss Bardot, 73, now an animal rights activist, wrote to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, then the interior minister, criticising the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep without first stunning them.
In the letter published by the magazine Info-Journal and handed out to members of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, she wrote: "We're fed up with being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts".
Several French anti-racism groups filed for charges of "inciting discrimination and racial hatred" against Muslims.
Miss Bardot was not in court, citing "difficulties in getting around", but her lawyer read out a note in which she said she was "appalled" at the "harassment" of anti-racism groups.
advertisement"I will never keep quiet" until animals are stunned before ritual slaughter, she added, saying she was "tired and weary".
"I too am tired and weary", said the prosecutor Anne de Fontette, pointing out that Miss Bardot had been convicted four times since 1997 on similar charges.
"She might as well write that Arabs should be thrown out of France", she said. "It is time to hand out heftier sentences".
The heaviest penalty to date was in 2004, when the star of "And God Created Woman" was fined £3,300 for inciting racial hatred in a book. In A Cry In The Silence, she "opposed the Islamisation of France" and racial mixing.
"You see racism and xenophobia, but I only see the expression of her fight" (against animal slaughter practices, said her lawyer, Francois(cedilla)-Xavier Kelidjian.
A lawyer for the French human rights league, a plaintiff, said that while Miss Bardot deserved respect as an actress and animal welfare campaigner, that did not give her "any special rights" to be racist, and called for the court to "put a stop" to such declarations.
The verdict is due on June 3.
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