This week, the world lost one of the most iconic actresses in history: Brigitte Bardot. It was a terribly sad moment for many moviegoers. However, for the free speech community, the death also brought one of the most bitter and hypocritical moments as French President Emmanuel Macron heralded Bardot as someone who “embodied a life of freedom.” As discussed repeatedly on this blog, Bardot was repeatedly prosecuted by the French government for exercising her free speech.
Bardot died at the age of 91 after spending a lifetime fighting for animal and free speech rights. That latter struggle led her repeatedly into conflict with the French government, which has long embraced wide-ranging censorship of its citizens. Macron himself is a distinctly anti-free-speech figure, despite the warm reception he received in past years from American politicians and the media.
Most recently, Macron expressed outrage at the sanctions imposed on notorious censors, including his anti-free-speech ally Thierry Breton.
Bardot rocketed to fame in 1956 with And God Created Woman, leading to a slew of other movies that highlighted her transcendent beauty. She then retired at a relatively young age and fought for animal rights. She was also a critic of what she saw as threats to the French culture from immigration, Islamic influences, and homosexuality. Many of us disagreed with some of those views, but she was exercising core rights of political speech.
Bardot once said, “I am greatly misunderstood by politically correct idiots. Politics disgusts me.”
Macron’s praise for Bardot’s “life of freedom” is reminiscent of the reaction of French officials to the massacre of editors at Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine. After hounding the victims for years with criminal investigations, the French government organized a march for free speech. As predicted, it then used the killing by Islamic extremists to further crack down on free speech.
Since then, France has been a leader in the rollback of free speech in the West, with ever-widening laws curtailing free speech. These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to “inciting” or “intimidating” others based on race or religion. For example, fashion designer John Galliano has been found guilty in a French court on charges of making anti-Semitic comments against at least three people in a Paris bar. At his sentencing, Judge Anne Marie Sauteraud read out a list of the bad words used by Galliano to Geraldine Bloch and Philippe Virgitti, including using ‘dirty whore” in criticism.
In another case, the father of French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was fined because he had called people from the Roma minority “smelly.” A French teenager was charged for criticizing Islam as a “religion of hate.”
This is a nation that still echoes the cry of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (“liberté, égalité, fraternité”). However, in today’s France, “liberté” is no longer valued. Individual rights of religion and speech are routinely sacrificed in the name of “equity” and “fraternity.”
In my book The Indispensable Right, I discuss how free speech is in a virtual free fall in Europe. As we face our own growing anti-free speech movement, citizens need to take a long look at countries like France to see what awaits us down this path. Europe went down this slippery slope of censorship decades ago, and the desire to silence others has now become an insatiable appetite.
Marcon has supported figures like Breton in globalizing the reach of the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA) to curtail speech, including Americans and American companies. Bardot was the target of such laws, and Macron’s government consistently and vigorously denied her effort to live a “life of freedom” in France.
Whether you were supportive or appalled by Bardot’s political views, she was unyielding in her demand to speak freely. She was the ultimate contrarian, even saying once “I have a slight despising for humanity in general.”
Emmanuel Macron has now made me understand why Bardot preferred the company of her animals.
. Enjoyed the French aesthetics over the years in art and culture. The film industry had many lovely offerings as do the Italians and more generally Europe. Brigitte Bardo was part of the aesthetics. She was part of the western civilization so much maligned by lesser beings. RIP.
We hold these truths to be self evident. Today there was one bold rose that bloomed. I brought it inside, enjoyed its beauty and scent and thought of Renoir’s, Girl Reading. Lovely remembrance of things past.
Professor Turley, a president saying something nice about an opponent upon their death is appropriate and should be encouraged.
But a president lying about a person after their death is just old hypocritical. Trump was a boob for saying what he said about Reiner, but Macron is a lying hypocrite for shamelessly praising someone for her speaking out against the political goonism going on in France.
I cannot believe my American born citizen brother-in-law chooses to live in Paris.
Anyone familiar with the history of France, and I don’t mean the generous, sentimental, inaccurate gloss we typically view them, would not be surprised.
Spot on post, Prof. Turley. Europe is circling the bowl. In one country that served as an aider and abetter to the Hitler and his Holocaust, hate speech is still allowed, as long as it is against Jews and Israel and not against Muslims. Young people, deprived of the history lesson about their country’s complicity in the Holocaust, have hopped on the anti-israel and Jew-hate bandwagon and now serve as useful idiots. The head of the government is blasted because she wants to send home those who would want to roll her country into a European Caliphate. Once the Jews are chased out (or worst), the other infidels will be in their crosshairs.
Well said. The left including Macron has abandoned thinking and with it any concern for the truth
so his glib ‘compliment’ for BB rolls right off his tongue without the slightest thought that it will be
considered to insincere and probably an outright lie.
How long before this experiment, the European Union, begins to unravel?
Won’t be soon enough!
Jon…I believe you were a Democrat at one point. Do you consider yourself a Democrat? The Party of RAW fascism….total Centralized POWER?
I believe the USA is at 1860…Democrats are Fighting a Civil War…Republicans are still trying to be Neville Chamberlain and just get along!
You can’t get along with EVIL… I consider Every Democrat EVIL. They push drugs, release criminals and import illegals to destroy America!
RIP Miss. Bardot. Thank you for your contributions in animal activism and free speech.
Comfort is everything. The left have always felt better when being led around by a ring in their nose.
Step out of line and a little pull on the rope will set you straight. The bull may hate it but the left enjoys walking quietly behind their masters right into the French voting booth. If you make your bed in a prison
you have to lie in it. Viva the French and freedom be damned.
Hypocrisy of the first order but that is not a unique characteristic of the human condition. It has been illegal to criticize the president of France for decades.
This was entirely predictable.
American Revolution->Declaration of Independence->Revolutionary War->Constitution->George Washington->John Adams->Thomas Jefferson->Madison->etc.->Civil war to preserve union and free the slaves-> Continuation of the Republic->present
French Revolution->Robespierre->Reign of Terror->Napolean and empire->20 years of Napoleanic wars->The return of the king->then 4 French Republics->and 2 more emperors->5th Republic->present .
I don’t think I will listen to France about governance and rights.
Remember when JD Vance went to Europe and talked to them about how they were trampling on their peoples’ rights (paraphrasing). They did not like what he was saying at all but he was right.
Europeans do not have the same perspective concerning speech rights as Americans. Apart from the fact that Vance can’t speak a European language. For the record, Vance speaks American English, not British English. So his speech was lost in translation.
“I don’t think I will listen to France about governance and rights.” I’m guessing you can’t understand French anyway.
Jonathan: I love your closing sentence!
Curious. What was to love? Macron?
You don’t understand much ANON!! You always have to say something stupid!!
Agree. I’d take a pit bull’s company over the elites of Europe.
Jack Brewster,
I have barn cats that are better people then these fascist leftists.
Mlle. Bardot, RIP. M. Macron, GFY.
RP Ms. Bardot
RIP that is.
Ah the Frogs!!!! This is the same culture and that allowed the Nazi’s to roll over them in record time and then had the Vichy put in with their new Swastika loving Masters! Pay no mind to the underhanded fair-weather French government as they sway like a cheap wind sock based on what the Euro Illuminati tell them what to think and do – Their New Masters!!
Frogs? SF.
There is nothing more disgusting than smiling fascists like Macron and Breton, who would gladly load their opponents onto cattle cars, while decrying authoritarianism. “Macron” means “raging hypocrite” in French.
Trump smiles a lot, therefore he must be a fascist too.
Bill Clinton was smiling a lot in all those pics of him at various Epstein places, like pools, airplanes, getting a massage.
Hillary Clinton smiles a lot. Then she tried to get the EU to censor Americans. She must be a fascist too.