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.