Actress Bardot to boycotts French election

PARIS, April 19, 2007 (AFP) – Former screen goddess Brigitte Bardot insists she is not backing any candidate in France’s presidential election on Sunday because they had refused to meet her to discuss animal rights.

Bardot, 72, also denies supporting the far-right National Front, even though her husband has been an advisor to its leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

“I will not be voting in 2007 because, in this campaign, no candidate has bothered to answer questions if it does not serve their interest,” Bardot said in a statement issued Thursday by her foundation.

“I have never been on a National Front list nor given my support to Mr Le Pen,” she was quoted as saying.

“Brigitte Bardot wants to make it clear that she is in no way associated or a sympathiser of an extreme right wing movement, neither personally and even less as president of the foundation that carries her name,” the foundation said in the statement.

Bardot is married to Bernard d’Ormal, an industrialist who has been an advisor to Le Pen.

The foundation complained because none of the candidates had responded to Bardot’s manifesto for animal rights, which had been sent to each of them.

The foundation said it asked to meet the leading candidates, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, socialist Segolene Royal and centrist Francis Bayrou.

“Not only, none of the candidates took the trouble to seriously consider these propositions, nor to give them exposure in the presidential debate, but above all the foundation never obtained the meetings requested: cancellation, lack of availability … any excuse was good enough,” said the statement.

“Why should I go into a polling station to offer my vote and my support to a candidate who has not listen to our demands and made propositions that answer them,” Bardot said in the statement.

Subject: French news