Il Nuovo Postiglione - Brigitte Bardot's funeral to be held next week in Saint-Tropez

The mayor's office earlier said the film-star-turned-animal-rights-activist, who died aged 91 on Sunday, would be laid to rest in the town's seaside cemetery.

The Brigitte Bardot Foundation said the funeral in the Notre-Dame de l'Assomption church on January 7 would be broadcast on screens across the town, followed by a "private" burial, but did not confirm where in Saint-Tropez she would be inhumed.

Bardot said in 2018 she wished to be buried in her garden, to avoid a "crowd of idiots" trampling on the tombs of her parents and grandparents.

Bardot shot to fame in her early twenties in the 1956 film "And God Created Woman" and went on to appear in about 50 films, but turned her back on cinema in 1973 to throw herself into fighting for animal welfare.

Her anti-immigration views and support for the far right however stirred controversy.

Bardot was convicted five times for hate speech, mostly about Muslims, but also about the inhabitants of the French island of Reunion whom she described as "savages".

She passed away before dawn on Sunday with her fourth husband, Bernard d'Ormale, a former adviser to the far right, by her side.

"She whispered a word of love to him... and she was gone," Bruno Jacquelin, a representative of her foundation for animals, told BFM television.

- 'Cynicism' -

Right-wing politicians paid gushing tributes to the film star. But leftists were more reserved, given her racist remarks in later years.

President Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, hailed the actor as a "legend" of the 20th century cinema who "embodied a life of freedom".

Three-time presidential candidate Marine le Pen, whose far-right National Rally party is riding high in the polls, called her "incredibly French: free, untameable, whole".

Bardot backed Le Pen for president in 2012 and 2017, describing her as a modern "Joan of Arc" she hoped could "save" France.

Conservative politician Eric Ciotti called for a national farewell like the one organised in 2018 for French rock star Johnny Hallyday. He started a petition online that by late Monday had garnered more than 12,000 signatures.

But Socialist party leader Olivier Faure was against the idea, saying such public tributes were for people who had rendered "exceptional services to the nation".

"Brigitte Bardot was an iconic actor of the New Wave," he said. "But she also turned her back on (French) republican values and was several times convicted for racism."

Communist party leader Fabien Roussel said at least all could agree she made French cinema "shine throughout the world".

But Greens lawmaker Sandrine Rousseau was more critical.

"To be moved by the fate of dolphins but remain indifferent to the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean -- what level of cynicism is that?" she quipped on BlueSky.

- Fame to 'protect animals' -

Born on September 28, 1934 in Paris, Bardot was raised in a well-off traditional Catholic household.

Married four times, she had one child, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, with her second husband, actor Jacques Charrier.

After quitting the cinema, Bardot withdrew to her home in the Saint-Tropez to devote herself to animal rights.

Her calling apparently came when she encountered a goat on the set of her final film, "The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot". To save it from being killed, she bought the animal and kept it in her hotel room.

"It gave me fame, and that fame allows me to protect animals -- the only cause that truly matters to me."

burs-ah/rmb

A.Mariconda--INP