Bardot may move to Sweden over animal rights

STOCKHOLM, July 19, 2006 (AFP) – French film star Brigitte Bardot told Sweden’s prime minister on Wednesday that she may move to Sweden because she was ashamed of her native France’s efforts to stop a Swedish law aimed at improving conditions on the country’s own mink farms.

“My image, my international identity, is still associated with France… I might leave France to spend my last years in Sweden because today I feel far closer to Swedish sensibilities than French insensibilities,” Bardot wrote in an open letter to Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

The longtime animal rights activist was protesting a move by France to block, by way of the European Union, a Stockholm initiative to improve conditions on Swedish mink farms.

Because of free market regulations within the EU, all proposed animal rights legislation is sent to the Commission, where other EU member states are given three months to examine the material. If no objections are raised, the legislation can be passed by the country concerned.

France objected to the Swedish mink farm proposal on June 14, preventing it from being voted on by the Swedish parliament before its summer recess.

Parliament will reconvene on October 1, after a September general election that may see the current government removed from power. Thus the proposed legislation may never see the light of day.

“I am ashamed by my government’s intervention, ashamed to be French,” Bardot said.

Between 1.3 million and 1.4 million mink are killed in Sweden every year for their fur, according to Swedish animal rights group Djurens Raett.

Subject: French News