According to “BB”, the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, fighting an uphill battle to win a second term, is a promise-breaker unworthy of trust … Ms Bardot pledges her own vote to the far-right, anti-immigration Front National leader, Marine Le Pen.
Actress Brigitte Bardot and French Presidential Candidate Marine LePen
Her name is one of the most famous in the world. Her views have a capacity to amuse, offend or appal – and her verdicts on the 10 people seeking election as president of France may well do all three.
From her home on the French Rivera, Brigitte Bardot has offered a candidate-by-candidate assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of those vying for votes in today’s first round.
It may not seem the essential guide for France’s sizeable body of undecided voters. A 77-year-old former actress’s ideas on who should govern the country is probably worth no more than those of the man or woman on the Parisian Metro.
But Ms Bardot’s opinions attract extravagant attention. A leading newspaper, Nice-Matin, which circulates along the Cote d’Azur, gave front-page treatment to news that she had “broken her silence”. It then devoted every inch of pages two and three to her pronouncements.
According to “BB”, the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, fighting an uphill battle to win a second term, is a promise-breaker unworthy of trust; his fiercest rival, the socialist François Hollande cannot be taken seriously because of his name alone (“it would be like having a president called Germany”); the far-left militant Nathalie Arthaud looks as if she would cheerfully stick her enemies’ heads on pikestaffs and the Norwegian-born “Green” Eva Joly is “so cute with her little foreign accent”.
French election law banned the publication of new opinion polls yesterday but the last ones to be conducted had Mr Hollande narrowly ahead of Mr Sarkozy, or level with him, for today’s first round and comfortably in the lead for the May 6 decider.
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