Brigitte Bardot seeks Christmas 'miracle' for animals

PARIS - AFP

Iconic former French film star and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has asked President Emmanuel Macron for a Christmas "miracle," with closed circuit TV in abattoirs and a curb to hunting.

The 84-year-old, who walked away from the cinema spotlight to embrace the animal cause, accused Macron of turning France into a "recreational facility for the extermination of animals."            "Animal protection has been thrown to the winds by an I-don't give-a-damn attitude on the part of the government," she said in a public letter published Wednesday, adding that this was a "shame for France."

"Christmas is a little miracle for some and I believe in miracles!" she wrote, calling for video surveillance in abattoirs "where three million animals are sacrificed every day in France in shamefully barbaric and terrifying conditions."

Bardot has appealed to Macron several times in recent months on animal rights.

The former sex kitten, who has retreated into a hermit-like existence in southern France, set up the Brigitte Bardot Foundation dedicated to animal protection in 1986.

In a letter to conservation group WWF in 2011, Bardot recounted her life-changing visit to Canada in the 1980s when she witnessed its annual seal cub culls.

"I will never forget these pictures, the screams of pain, they still torture me but they have given me the strength to sacrifice my whole life to defend the animal's one," she said.

Bardot has also crusaded for and elephants, and called for the abolition of ritual animal sacrifice and the closure of horse abattoirs.