The China Mail - Mourners pay tribute to Brigitte Bardot at Saint-Tropez funeral

A day of commemorations for the renowned animal rights activist began with a Catholic service at the Notre-Dame de l'Assomption church, where her unusual wicker coffin was welcomed by her long-estranged son.

Hundreds of people, many with their pets, gathered to watch the ceremony on a giant screen in front of the yacht-filled Saint-Tropez marina, which the blonde star of "And God Created Woman" made famous.

A white hearse then carried the reclusive legend of the late 1950s and 60s to her family's Mediterranean seaside grave, where the casket was buried in pale winter sunshine at a private ceremony.

"What I remember most is what she did for animals, she had a real sensitivity," Sandrine, a school assistant who had travelled several hours to pay her respects, told AFP.

She admitted that Bardot, who died in late December aged 91, had "a small streak of racism too, but it wasn't malicious -- she wasn't just that".

The 60-year-old from the Pyrenees mountains said she had expected a larger public turnout, suggesting some had stayed away because of criticism of Bardot's political views and convictions for inciting racial hatred.

- 'No frills' event -

Bardot's best-known associations -- to the heyday of the New Wave French film industry, animal rights campaigning, and far-right politics -- were all represented at Friday's church service.

A host of fellow campaigners against animal cruelty and the son of late film star Jean-Paul Belmondo attended, as did French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen.

Paul Watson, the Canadian founder of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling charity, was among the 400 invitees for what organisers promised would be a "no frills" event.

"Brigitte was my friend for 50 years," he told AFP, adding that he had attended "to recognise her incredible contribution to protecting animals around the world, especially her work on stopping the Canadian seal hunt".

He and others filed into the church past a photo of a smiling Bardot with one of her dogs, while a well-known image of her cuddling a baby seal was placed near the pulpit and on the front of the service booklet.

Bardot gave up her film career at the height of her fame in 1973, settling in Saint-Tropez where she campaigned vigorously against bull-fighting, hunting, seal slaughter and horsemeat consumption -- all of which were referenced on Wednesday.

A public commemoration in a park rounded out a day of tributes and remembrance for a woman considered both a symbol of Saint-Tropez -- whose jetset image she grew to detest -- as well as the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

- Cancer battle -

On the eve of the commemorations, Bardot's fourth and final husband, far-fight former political adviser Bernard d'Ormale, revealed the cause of her death.

Bardot had undergone two operations for an unspecified cancer before the disease "took her", d'Ormale told the Paris Match magazine in an interview about their life together.

D'Ormale was seated in the front row on Wednesday alongside Bardot's only child, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, who attended with his children and grandchildren.

Charrier, 65, was brought up by his father, film director Jacques Charrier, and lives in Oslo.

Bardot had compared pregnancy to carrying a "tumour that fed on me" and called parenthood a "misery", living most of her life with no contact with her son.

They drew closer in the final years of her life and he laid a wreath with a simple message -- "To Mother" -- and sobbed during Wednesday's service.

- Divisive -

The lack of a state commemoration for Bardot, one of France's best-known celebrities, as well as the mixed public reaction to her death, reflect her divisive character and much-debated legacy.

Most observers agree that she was a cinema legend who came to embody the swinging '60s in France and a form of women's emancipation through her acting and daring, unconventional persona.

President Emmanuel Macron's office offered to organise a national homage similar to one staged for fellow New Wave hero Belmondo in 2021, but the idea was snubbed by Bardot's family.

Macron did not attend on Wednesday but sent a wreath.

N.Wan--ThChM