PARIS -- Brigitte Bardot has announced she’ll vote for Marine Le Pen during Sunday's first round of the French presidential election.
“I think this woman is just admirable. She has the best ideas, especially compared to those other two clowns,” she declares, talking about the election frontrunners, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Bardot, 77, does not mince her words, or actions. The longtime animal rights activist has also become an outspoken critic of immigration, and has been cited five times for "inciting racial hatred."
She doesn't hold back either when she talking about the two leading candidates, particularly Sarkozy, for whom she voted in 2007: “I am disgusted by this guy,” she says. As for François Hollande, she has a very personal opinion of the reason why it is not a good idea to vote for him. “France cannot be ruled by a man named ‘Hollande.’ It’s just not possible! It would be as if we had a president named ‘Germany’,” she explains.
According to the 1960s icon, Marine Le Pen is different because she managed to “rehabilitate the National Front’s image.” “This new ‘Marine version’ of the French extreme-right party is neither fascist nor Nazi,” says Bardot, who also appreciates the fact that “Marine is the only one who denounced the halal meat scandal, which is one of my priorities, as I fight against ritual slaughter.”
But according to Brigitte Bardot, the archetypal “ideal president” remains Vladimir Putin, because “he did more for animals’ rights than any of our presidents.”
Read the full story in French
Photo - John McNab and FN
*Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations
