Paris — Brigitte Bardot’s funeral was being held on Wednesday with a private service and a public homage in Saint-Tropez, the French Riviera resort where she lived for more than half a century after retiring from movie stardom at the height of her fame.
President Emmanuel Macron said after her death that France was “mourning a legend.”
She died from cancer after undergoing two operations, her husband, Bernard d’Ormale, said in an interview with Paris Match magazine released Tuesday evening. “She was conscious and concerned about the fate of animals until the very end,” he said.
A hearse carrying the coffin of Brigitte Bardot passes crowds as it arrives at Eglise Notre-Dame de l’Assomption for the late movie star and cultural icon’s funeral, Jan. 7, 2026, in Saint-Tropez, France.
Arnold Jerocki/Getty
Residents and admirers applauded the funeral convoy as the coffin of Bardot, once one of the world’s most photographed women and a defining screen siren of the 1960s, was being carried through the town’s narrow streets.
A service started to the sound of Maria Callas’ “Ave Maria” at the Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption Catholic Church in the presence of Bardot’s husband, son and grandchildren, as well as guests invited by the family and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals.
Hundreds of people gathered in the small town to follow the farewell on large screens set up at the port and on two plazas.
After the church service, Bardot is to be buried “in the strictest privacy” at a cemetery overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, according to the Saint-Tropez town hall.
She had long called Saint-Tropez her refuge from the celebrity that once made her a household name.
Brigitte Bardot’s coffin is carried into the church during her funeral, Jan. 7, 2026, in Saint-Tropez, France.
Arnold Jerocki/Getty
A public homage will take place at a nearby site for admirers of the woman whose image once symbolized France’s postwar liberation and sensuality.
“Brigitte Bardot will forever be associated with Saint-Tropez, of which she was the most dazzling ambassador,” the town hall said last week. “Through her presence, personality and aura, she marked the history of our town.”
Bardot settled decades ago in her seaside villa, La Madrague, and retired from filmmaking in 1973 at age 39, during an international career that spanned more than two dozen films.
French actress Brigitte Bardot poses with a huge sombrero she brought back from Mexico, as she arrives at Orly Airport in Paris, France, May 27, 1965.
AP
She later emerged as an animal rights activist, founding and sustaining a foundation devoted to the protection of animals.
“Man is an insatiable predator,” Bardot told The Associated Press on her 73rd birthday, in 2007. “I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that suffers, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.”
Her activism earned her compatriots’ respect and, in 1985, she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the nation’s highest recognition.
While she withdrew from the film industry, she remained a highly visible and often controversial public figure through decades of militant animal rights activism and links with far-right politics.
Movie icon Brigitte Bardot is seen petting a dog in Paris, France, Feb. 10, 1982.
Duclos/AP
She will be buried in the so-called marine cemetery, where her parents are also interred.
The cemetery, overlooking the Mediterranean sea, is also the final resting place of several cultural figures, including filmmaker Roger Vadim, Bardot’s first husband, who directed her breakout film “And God Created Woman,” a role that made her a worldwide star.
BRUSSELS, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Finance ministers from the Group of Seven nations will meet in Washington on January 12 to discuss rare earths supplies, three sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
One of the sources added that price floors for rare earths would be a point of discussion, among other critical mineral topics.
G7 countries, except Japan, are heavily or exclusively reliant on China for a range of materials from rare earth magnets to battery metals. In June last year, the G7 agreed on an action plan to secure their supply chains and boost their economies.
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki in Tokyo, Julia Payne in Brussels and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Alex Richardson)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Snow, ice and freezing temperatures hit parts of Europe on Tuesday, causing treacherous traffic conditions that left at least five people dead in France and forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights from one of the continent’s busiest airports.
Authorities in the Landes region of southwestern France reported three dead in accidents, and at least two more people were reportedly killed in the Île-de-France region around Paris, where authorities ordered trucks off the road as snowfall caused huge traffic jams on Monday.
Paris awoke Tuesday to a blanket of snow on its famous rooftops and sites, and children whose schools couldn’t hold classes delighted in an unexpected day off. Air travelers were less happy, as heavy snowfall forced the closure of six airports in the north and west of France.
Dutch weather woes
As snow fell across the Netherlands, Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport reported that some 400 flights were grounded as crews worked to clear runways and de-ice planes waiting to depart. Hundreds of flights were also canceled Monday in Amsterdam and more snow was forecast for the rest of the week.
Just getting to and from the airport outside the Dutch capital was a struggle with frozen points and an early morning software glitch throwing the Netherlands’ rail system into turmoil.
Limited rail services resumed later in the morning but routes around Amsterdam remained largely closed because of the icy conditions, national railway company NS said on its website. It urged commuters to “only travel if it’s absolutely necessary.”
Commuters forced to drive to work also faced time-consuming journeys as a combination of the snow and ice snarled traffic on some highways.
Thijs Rademakers, an 18-year-old student, decided to ride his bike rather than wait for public transport.
“It was tough, very slippery,” he said in the eastern city of Arnhem. “Many people fall. Luckily, I didn’t.”
Rome’s wet weather limits numbers at pope’s Epiphany blessing
In Rome, weeks of rain that have swollen the Tiber River over its banks again muted Pope Leo XIV’s Christmas-time celebrations. St. Peter’s Square was only partially full Tuesday as a few thousand people crowded under colorful umbrellas to hear Leo deliver his Epiphany blessing from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Rome has been soaked by steady rains since before Christmas, and Mayor Roberto Gualtieri issued an ordinance for Tuesday limiting public access to parks and other areas at risk for falling trees and flooding.
Farther north, snow dusted Bologna and gave skiers in the Dolomites reason to cheer, though freezing temperatures are forecast for much of the north and central part of the peninsula over the coming days.
Temperatures plummet in Britain
A cold snap sent the temperature in northern parts of Britain down to minus 12.5 degrees Celsius (9.5 Fahrenheit) overnight, as snow disrupted rail, road and air travel and closed hundreds of schools.
Horse races and soccer matches have been called off because of snow and frost, a power failure caused by ice closed Glasgow’s subway and Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport was closed for a time on Monday.
Up to 15 centimeters (6 inches) of snow was forecast Tuesday for northern Scotland, where some people have already been snowed in by previous falls. Northeast Scotland lawmaker Andrew Bowie said the situation was “critical,” and called for soldiers to be sent in to clear snow and get food and medical supplies to stranded people.
Icy Balkans
Both heavy snow and heavy rain swept through Balkan countries, swelling rivers and creating problems in traffic and disruptions in power and water supplies. A woman died in Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo on Monday after a snow-covered tree branch fell on her head. In neighboring Serbia, some western municipalities introduced emergency measures due to bad weather.
Authorities in Serbia warned drivers to be very careful as many set off toward skiing resorts or elsewhere for Orthodox Christmas on Wednesday and the upcoming weekend. Black ice stopped cars and forced drivers to park on the side on their way to Mount Bjelasnica above Sarajevo on Tuesday morning.
Heavy wind and stormy seas battered the Adriatic coastline in Croatia and Montenegro. Video footage showed the sea sweeping through holiday cottages at Ada Bojana in southern Montenegro during a storm.
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Associated Press writers across Europe contributed to this report.
AMSTERDAM, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Snow and ice continued to disrupt traffic in the Netherlands on Tuesday halting all trains and forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
Dutch railway company NS said no trains could operate until at least 0900 GMT due to problems caused by snow and subzero temperatures.
At Amsterdam Schiphol airport, airline KLM cancelled at least 300 flights for Tuesday as the winter weather crippled traffic at one of Europe’s main transit hubs for the fifth day in a row.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Michael Perry)
A Paris court found Monday 10 people guilty of cyberbullying France’s first lady Brigitte Macron by spreading false online claims about her gender and sexuality, including allegations she was born a man.
The court handed out sentences to all the defendants ranging from a cyberbullying awareness training to 8-month suspended prison sentences.
The court pointed to “particularly degrading, insulting, and malicious” comments referring to false claims regarding alleged trans identity and alleged pedo criminality targeting Brigitte Macron.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron in Paris on Dec. 8, 2025.
Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP via Getty Images
The defendants, eight men and two women aged 41 to 65, were accused of posting “numerous malicious comments” falsely claiming that President Emmanuel Macron ‘s wife was born a man and linking the 24-year age gap with her husband to pedophilia. Some of the posts were viewed tens of thousands of times.
Brigitte Macron didn’t attend the two-day trial in October. Speaking on TF1 national television Sunday, she said she launched legal proceedings to “set an example” in the fight against harassment.
Her daughter, Tiphaine Auzière, testified about what she described as the “deterioration” of her mother’s life since the online harassment intensified. “She cannot ignore the horrible things said about her,” Auzière told the court. She said the impact has extended to the entire family, including Macron’s grandchildren.
Defendant Delphine Jegousse, 51, who is known as Amandine Roy and describes herself as a medium and author, is considered to have played a major role in spreading the rumor after she released a four-hour video on her YouTube channel in 2021.
The X account of Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, 41, known as Zoé Sagan on social media, was suspended in 2024 after his name was cited in several judicial investigations.
Other defendants include an elected official, a teacher and a computer scientist. Several told the court their comments were intended as humor or satire and said they didn’t understand why they were being prosecuted.
The Macrons, who have been married since 2007, first met at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher. Brigitte Macron, 24 years her husband’s senior, was then called Brigitte Auzière, a married mother of three.
Emmanuel Macron, 48, has been France’s president since 2017.
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland, Jan 5 (Reuters) – Pressure was building for answers on Monday from the investigation into a New Year bar fire in a Swiss ski resort that killed 40 people, after authorities said they had now identified all the victims, most of whom were teenagers.
The Alpine getaway of Crans-Montana in the canton of Valais united in mourning on Sunday with condolences coming in from leaders ranging from Pope Leo to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Prosecutors said the fire that spread rapidly in the early hours of January 1 was likely caused by sparkling candles igniting the ceiling of the bar’s basement.
Authorities are investigating the two people who ran the bar on suspicion of crimes including homicide by negligence. On Sunday, police said circumstances did not currently merit them being put under arrest and they did not see a flight risk.
On Monday morning, Swiss newspaper Blick said anger over the case was growing.
“Why are the couple running the bar free?” the paper said on its front page, pasted over a photo of mourners and media gathered around the huge pile of flowers left in front of the “Le Constellation” bar.
The youngest victims of the blaze, which also injured well over 100 people, were only 14 years old, and the dead were from all around Europe, including several from France and Italy. Swiss authorities have not named the victims.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said in a social media post that “in civilized Switzerland, the prison gates will have to open for quite a few people”.
Salvini said there had been a failure to ensure the bar’s basement was safe, questioning the emergency systems and whether there had been enough inspections.
Aika Chappaz, a local resident who took part in a silent procession through the town on Sunday, said justice must be done for the sake of future generations.
“It’s crucial that such a tragedy never happens again. And the investigation must be thorough, because it’s so unbelievable,” she said.
Tages-Anzeiger, another leading Swiss newspaper, said questions must be answered about the age checks at the bar, the soundproofing material used in the basement and the standards governing use of the so-called fountain candles.
One of the bar’s two operators, Jacques Moretti, told Swiss media that Le Constellation had been checked three times in 10 years and that everything was done according to the rules.
Valais authorities say investigators were checking if the bar had undergone its annual building inspections, but that the town had not raised concerns or reported defects to the canton.
(Reporting by Dave Graham and Cecile Mantovani; Editing by Alex Richardson)
PARIS, Jan 5 (Reuters) – The opening of France’s Louvre museum in Paris was delayed until 0900 GMT on Monday as staff was meeting to decide whether to resume a strike started in December over pay and working conditions, museum employees said.
Staff on December 19 had voted to call off the strike until January 5.
(Reporting by Sarah Meyssonnier, Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten)
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland, Jan 4 (Reuters) – Hundreds of people silently filed through the frosty streets of the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana on Sunday to remember victims of a New Year bar fire that killed at least 40 people and injured more than a hundred others.
Following a packed church mass that spilled outdoors, the crowd slowly walked towards an impromptu shrine to the victims next to the “Le Constellation” bar that went up in flames in the early hours of January 1.
“It’s to be together with the people who are suffering, who have lost somebody in the family, children or friends,” said 76-year-old Charlotte Schumacher, a participant in the procession. “I know people who have lost their grandchildren.”
Teenagers as young as 14 or 15 years old were among the dead, and the severity of the burns suffered by the victims has made the process of identifying them difficult.
Attendees of the interconfessional church service hugged and shook hands as the prosperous Alpine town sought to pull together to process the trauma of one of the deadliest tragedies to strike modern Switzerland.
Prosecutors said the fire was likely caused by sparkling candles igniting the ceiling of its basement. Swiss authorities have put the two people who ran the bar under investigation on suspicion of crimes including homicide by negligence.
The injured and missing came from all corners of Europe and as far afield as Australia, underlining the international appeal of the picturesque resort with panoramic views of the Alps.
But most of the tally were Swiss. The toll might have been worse if emergency services had not acted so quickly, residents said.
“Within minutes you had ambulances; within minutes you had the police that did their job and they did it unbelievably well,” said Max Haus, a local business owner who witnessed the harrowing aftermath of the blaze.
As Sunday’s sombre procession reached its conclusion, applause began rippling from one end to the other as dozens of police and emergency services workers, some of them in tears, came up through the middle to be celebrated as heroes.
“It’s unimaginable what they did, what they have seen,” Bruno Huggler, the director of tourism for Crans-Montana, said of the rescue workers. “And now it’s very important to take care of them.”
(Reporting by Dave GrahamEditing by Christina Fincher)
ZURICH, Jan 4 (Reuters) – The bodies of four more people who died in the fire that killed 40 people at a bar in Switzerland on New Year’s Eve have been identified, cantonal police said.
Two Swiss women aged 24 and 22 along with two Swiss men aged 21 and 18 have been identified and their bodies have been returned to their families, Valais police said. No further information was given.
The news takes the number of identified bodies following the blaze in the ski resort of Crans-Montana to eight, after the identification of four other bodies on Saturday.
Officials are still trying to identify many of those killed in the fire at the Le Constellation bar, which has become one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.
Some 119 people suffered injuries, including severe burns, with many transferred to burn units in hospitals around Europe. Work on identifying the dead and the injured are continuing, the police said.
Two people who ran the bar are under criminal investigation on suspicion of offences including homicide by negligence, prosecutors said on Saturday.
(Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
“Minimal” is on view at La Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection through January 19, 2025. Courtesy Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection
Minimalism emerged as both an act of resistance and a direct response to the exuberance of mass media and mass production—forces celebrated as progress that fundamentally reshaped how we relate to objects and to material reality itself. Seen from today’s vantage point, works made during the height of the movement in the 1960s and ’70s reveal a radical and strikingly timely philosophical and political interrogation of our modern sense of reality that feels particularly urgent in an era defined by the mediatization and spectacularization of the digital sphere.
Against the promise of endless availability and the relentless cycles of production, circulation and consumption—including the infinite reproducibility of the digital image—Minimalism’s artists embraced an ascetic discipline of reduction, stripping the artwork to its essential terms and events while intensifying its effects. In doing so, they underscored how an object, through restraint, can shape perception and reconfigure the very space and architecture that contain it.
“Minimal,” a major exhibition that opened at La Bourse de Commerce in October, brings together over 100 works, including a core group drawn from François Pinault’s collection, alongside international loans from the Dia Foundation in New York and other institutions. Curated by Dia director Jessica Morgan, it traces, likely for the first time, both the diversity and the global reach of the movement launched by a generation of artists who initiated a radical approach to art that later took on different forms around the world.
The exhibition unfolds as a journey that allows for multiple discoveries and rediscoveries, showcasing how artists from diverse cultural backgrounds across Asia, Europe, and North and South America similarly challenged traditional methods of art production and display. At its core is a fundamental reconsideration of the artwork’s placement in relation to the viewer and within the cyclical flow of energy and matter that underpins the cosmos itself.
Lygia Pape’s Weaving Space. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection | Courtesy Projeto Lygia Pape
The works in the show were born out of a shared attempt to stage raw encounters with matter and to engage the most primordial and authentic structures of human experience. Conceived with both conceptual and spiritual rigor, they privilege presence and perception over form, becoming experiential sites of “lived perception”—embodying an entire mode of thinking in an art object that places the physical self at the center of understanding the world.
Philosophically, Minimalist artworks foreground a mature awareness of reality as inherently interrelational, something that arises only in the encounter between object, viewer and environment. A radical manifestation of this interdependence appears in the central installations by American artist Meg Webster, which dominate the Bourse’s scenic, frescoed rotunda. Conceived and realized in collaboration with natural processes, their final form stages a tense resistance to entropy, which inevitably alters their shape and appearance over time beyond any claim to human formal control or perfection. Natural processes are embedded within these seemingly simple structures, which ultimately draw an entire ecosystem into Tadao Ando’s spare architecture. Here, the total choreography matters as much as its individual components, as Webster constructs an interior landscape at the building’s core.
Merging nature and culture, matter and energy, Webster’s process-based sculpture is infused with a prescient ecological consciousness. Poised between the elemental and the formal, between human-shaped material and natural transformation, her work prompts reflection on sustainability and our relationship to the earth—particularly resonant today as she receives long-overdue international attention through this presentation, which runs in conjunction with her year-long exhibition at Dia Beacon.
Meg Webster works at Bourse de Commerce. Photo : Florent Michel / 11h45 / Pinault Collection
If Minimalism has long been interpreted as an aesthetic reaction to the subjective overflow of Abstract Expressionism and the figuration of Pop Art, the global perspective and breadth of this exhibition make clear that the approach often extended far beyond a purely aesthetic exercise. In doing so, it prepared the conceptual ground for a substantial share of contemporary sculpture and Conceptual Art, pushing the logic of economy of means to the point of privileging the idea over its realization. This shift opened up possibilities for many contemporary artistic practices that operate beyond, or are no longer confined to, fixed traditional media.
The exhibition is organized into seven thematic sections: Light, Mono-ha, Balance, Surface, Grid, Monochrome and Materialism. The titles signal the core elements these artists investigated in their inquiry into the most radical ways of translating reality through art reduced to its most essential components. Unadorned by any pretense of figuration or narrative and detached from the biographical identity of its maker, each work functions simultaneously as proposition and question.
Underlying the pieces on view is a shared desire to situate the audience within the same perceptual field, calling for a bodily correspondence between artwork and viewer through scale and proximity. In many parts of the world, this reconceptualization of three-dimensional form and perception led to a dialogue with performance, whether through process-based making, choreographic collaboration or direct physical interaction with the work.
The exhibition naturally includes the early generation of American artists most closely associated with the movement, including Donald Judd, Carl Andre and Dan Flavin, though they do not occupy center stage, reflecting an effort to decentralize and broaden the narrative. As at Dia, the show presents artists from the 1960s who pursued a similarly radical engagement with the canvas, exploring austerity and mathematical rigor through monochrome and grid-based structures. Figures such as Robert Ryman and Agnes Martin are represented by some of the most significant works drawn from Pinault’s collection.
Particularly compelling is the dialogue established with parallel aesthetics emerging from markedly different cultural, philosophical and spiritual contexts outside the United States. Among these, the Japanese Mono-ha group offers one of the exhibition’s most resonant contributions. Pinault’s holdings include one of the most substantial collections of Mono-ha works outside Japan. Artists such as Lee Ufan, Kishio Suga, Koji Enokura, Susumu Koshimizu, Nobuo Sekine and Jiro Takamatsu foreground the interrelation of object, space and viewer, staging “things” together in their natural or industrially fabricated states. By embracing the delicate balance and tension produced by their transitory condition, these artists investigated a form of material intelligence, examining how matter retains identity even as form shifts, prioritizing material presence over sculptural expression and over any symbolic or linguistic framing.
Another compelling perspective included in the exhibition is the organic and participatory reinterpretation of geometric abstraction developed in Brazil through the Neo-Concrete movement, exemplified by Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica. A capsule exhibition dedicated to Pape, “Weaving Space,” which opened a month earlier and runs concurrently, served as a prelude to “Minimal.” It traces key moments in her oeuvre, from Max Bill-inspired geometries to an increasingly organic and participatory use of abstraction, presenting works that range from her first abstract engravings to her monumental Livro Noite e Dia III (Book of Night and Day III) from 1963-76, alongside experimental films that emerged in response to Brazil’s sociopolitical context at the time. At the heart of the presentation is her poetic, full-room installation Ttéia 1, C (2003-2017), in which she literally weaves space into a new architectural structure using delicate gold threads, transforming the environment into a luminous and diaphanous site of exchange between physical presence and imagination, light and darkness.
One of her most radical works, Divisor (1968), was restaged during the show’s opening weeks. As in its original enactment in Rio de Janeiro, a hundred participants moved as one beneath an immense perforated white sheet, forming a living metaphor for a shared social fabric. In this gentle merging of forms, hierarchy is suspended, and the work invites a collective, participatory meditation on equality, employing abstraction as a universal language that transcends individuality and binds participants within a shared structure.
Occupying the entirety of the rotunda is On Kawara’s Minimal Chronology of Dated Paintings, forming a minimalist diary and record of personal and collective time. By painting the numbers that denote each passing day, Kawara creates a fragment of space and materiality in which the durational act of painting absorbs the multiplicity of events and meanings implied within a single date, set against the relentless flow of time. By confronting the idea that linear time itself is a conventional and ultimately arbitrary human construction, Kawara’s date paintings distill life to its most essential marker—time alone—aligning with Minimalism’s drive toward radical reduction through their emphasis on the viewer’s direct encounter with the present. Meanwhile, in Europe, movements such as Zero in Germany and Arte Povera in Italy pushed the boundaries of sculpture through minimalist vocabularies and a direct engagement with space as a hybrid, active presence.
The additional perspectives and less expected figures presented in the Light section offer a fresh reading of how Minimalism enabled artists to investigate one of the most phenomenologically charged elements through which we access physical reality. In the 1960s and ’70s, light became a primary material. Artists including Dan Flavin, Nancy Holt, François Morellet, Robert Irwin, Mary Corse, Keith Sonnier and Chryssa worked with fluorescent tubes, neon, black light, projected light and natural illumination, driven by a broader inquiry into perception and immateriality as artificial and industrial lighting came to dominate the urban environment. Flavin’s fluorescent structures redefined spatial boundaries and architectural features, while Holt and Irwin explored the relational, phenomenological nature of light, focusing on how it organizes perception and bodily movement. Corse, meanwhile, experimented with Tesla coils and argon gas, producing works that appear to capture and hold light itself.
It is in these perspectives that we gain further evidence of how, through a minimalist language, these artists were already posing urgent questions that remain, or have become even more timely today. Ultimately, Minimal art, in its various declinations, was already probing the dynamics and structures that shape our relationship to reality and our physical position within a world of things transformed into products and meaning through human-made symbols and systems that often attempt to contain or neutralize, through illusion, the entropic nature of reality beyond human cognitive and sensory grasp.
The emphasis in these works rests on the moment of encounter itself: the phenomenology of seeing before and beyond any process of signification. Form becomes secondary to process, presence and the inherent agency of materials. Through deconstruction and reduction, these works introduce profound existential doubts rather than offering closed propositions, redirecting attention to a pre-linguistic register of experience—the first contact with reality, which already carries its own phenomenological truth. What they propose is an epistemology grounded in dynamic, open-ended relationships with matter. In doing so, the works cultivate a heightened awareness of the sensory core of our experience of the world, our only access within the limits of embodied perception.
In a culture saturated with mediated images and, increasingly, with algorithmic simulations and machine-generated forms, Minimalism restores the body as the primary filter and medium through which the world is apprehended—an insistence on embodied perception that feels newly urgent in a desensitized and increasingly alienated society, where digital mediation and elaboration govern, or can potentially substitute for, much of our experience of reality.
PARIS, Dec 31 (Reuters) – European leaders meeting in Paris on January 6 will make firm commitments towards protecting Ukraine after any peace deal with Russia is brokered, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday during his New Year Eve’s speech.
Macron has convened a meeting of the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’ next Tuesday. The Coalition grouping led by Britain and France includes more than 30 nations.
“On January 6 in Paris, many European states and allies will make concrete commitments to protect Ukraine and ensure a just and lasting peace on our European continent,” Macron said.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff earlier said that ways to strength security guarantees for Ukraine were discussed during Wednesday talks between U.S. officials, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and national security advisers from the UK, France and Germany.
In mid December, the leaders of several European countries including Germany, France and Britain, said there had been “strong convergence” with the U.S. after talks in Berlin and stated a list of goals for both sides to work towards.
These included commitments to supporting Ukraine’s armed forces, a European-led peacekeeping force and guarantees to use force if Ukraine came under attack again.
Kyiv has come under intense pressure from the Trump administration to make concessions to Russia to enable a deal. Ukraine’s European allies say any peace accord must ensure robust security guarantees backed by U.S. support.
(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Richard Lough)
LONDON, Dec 30 (Reuters) – The humanitarian situation in Gaza has worsened again and is of serious concern, Britain, Canada, France and others said in a joint statement on Tuesday that also called on Israel to take urgent action.
The statement, published online by the British Foreign Office, said Israel should allow non-governmental organisations to work in Israel in a sustained and predictable way, and ensure the U.N. could continue its work in the Palestinian enclave.
“(We) express serious concerns about the renewed deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza which remains catastrophic,” read the statement from the foreign ministers of Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
It also said Israel should lift what it called “unreasonable restrictions” on certain imports including medical and shelter equipment, and open border crossings to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in October after two years of intense Israeli bombardment and military operations in Gaza that followed a deadly attack by Hamas-led fighters on Israeli communities in October 2023.
A global hunger monitor said on December 19 that there was no longer famine in Gaza after access for humanitarian and commercial food deliveries improved following the ceasefire.
But humanitarian agencies say far more aid needs to get into the small, crowded territory and that Israel is blocking needed items from entering. Israel says more than enough food gets in and that the problems are with distribution within Gaza.
(Reporting by William James; editing by Andrew Heavens and Mark Heinrich)
MOSCOW, Dec 30 (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Tuesday that a Ukrainian drone attack on a presidential residence in the Novgorod region would toughen Russia’s position on a possible peace deal to end the fighting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dismissed the Russian accusations as “another round of lies” aimed to justify additional attacks against Ukraine and to prolong the war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted Ukraine’s denial of the drone attack – and said that many Western media were playing along with Kyiv’s denial.
“This terrorist action is aimed at collapsing the negotiation process,” Peskov told reporters. “The diplomatic consequence will be to toughen the negotiating position of the Russian Federation.”
The Russian military, he said, knew how and when to respond.
“We see that Zelenskiy himself is trying to deny this, and many Western media outlets, playing along with the Kyiv regime, are starting to spread the theme that this did not happen,” Peskov said. “This is a completely insane assertion.”
Peskov declined to say where Putin was at the time of the attack, saying that in light of recent events such details should not be in the public domain.
When asked if Russia had physical evidence of the drone attack, he said air defences shot the drones down but that the question of wreckage was for the defence ministry.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge editing by Andrew Osborn)
Paris — French politicians were divided on Monday over how to pay tribute to the late Brigitte Bardot who, despite her screen legend, courted controversy — and convictions — in later life with her far-right views.
The film star died on Sunday at the age of 91 at home in the south of France. Media around the globe splashed iconic images of her and tributes following the announcement.
Bardot shot to fame in the 1956 film “And God Created Woman” and went on to appear in about 50 films, but turned her back on cinema in 1973 to throw herself into fighting for animal rights.
But her links to the far-right stirred controversy.
Bardot was convicted five times for hate speech, mostly about Muslims but also about the inhabitants of the French island of Reunion, whom she described as “savages.”
She died before dawn on Sunday morning with her fourth husband, Bernard d’Ormale, a former adviser to the far right, by her side.
“She whispered a word of love to him … and she was gone,” Bruno Jacquelin, a representative of her foundation for animals, told BFM television.
French President Emmanuel Macron hailed her as a “legend” of 20th century cinema who “embodied a life of freedom.”
Photographs, plush toys and flowers displayed on barriers at the entrance of “La Madrague” house, property of late Brigitte Bardot in Saint-Tropez, southeastern France on Dec. 29, 2025. The French film legend died at the age of 91 the day before.
MIGUEL MEDINA /AFP via Getty Images
Right-wing politicians laud Bardot
Far-right figures were among the first to mourn her.
Marine le Pen, whose National Rally party is riding high in polls, called her “incredibly French: free, untameable, whole.”
Bardot backed Le Pen for president in 2012 and 2017 and described her as a modern “Joan of Arc” she hoped could “save” France.
Conservative politician Eric Ciotti suggested a national farewell like the one organized for French rock legend Johnny Hallyday.
He launched an online petition that had garnered just over 7,000 signatures Monday.
Brigitte Bardot poses with a huge sombrero she brought back from Mexico, as she arrives at Orly Airport in Paris, France, on May 27, 1965.
AP
Left-wing politicians temper praise and some are sharply critical
But few left-wing politicians have spoken about Bardot’s passing.
“Brigitte Bardot was a towering figure, a symbol of freedom, rebellion, and passion,” Philippe Brun, a senior Socialist party deputy, told Europe 1 radio.
“We are sad she is gone,” he said, adding he did not oppose a national homage.
But he did hint at her controversial political views.
“As for her political commitments, there will be time enough — in the coming days and weeks — to talk about them,” he said.
Communist party leader Fabien Roussel called Bardot a divisive figure.
But “we all agree French cinema created BB and that she made it shine throughout the world,” he wrote on X.
Lawmaker Sandrine Rousseau, of the left-leaning Greens Party, was more critical.
“To be moved by the fate of dolphins but remain indifferent to the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean — what level of cynicism is that?” she quipped on BlueSky.
Bardot’s remarks on her funeral raised some eyebrows
Bardot said she wanted to be buried in her garden with a simple wooden cross above her grave — just like for her animals — and wanted to avoid “a crowd of idiots” at her funeral.
Such a burial is possible in France if local authorities grant permission.
Born on Sept. 28, 1934 in Paris, Bardot was raised in a well-off traditional Catholic household.
Married four times, she had one child, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, with her second husband, actor Jacques Charrier.
After quitting the cinema, Bardot withdrew to her home in Saint-Tropez to devote herself to animal rights.
Her calling apparently came when she encountered a goat on the set of her final film, “The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot.” To save it from being killed, she bought the animal and kept it in her hotel room.
“I’m very proud of the first chapter of my life,” she told AFP in a 2024 interview ahead of her 90th birthday.
“It gave me fame, and that fame allows me to protect animals — the only cause that truly matters to me.”
Brigitte Bardot, the French 1960s sex symbol who became one of the greatest screen sirens of the 20th century and later a militant animal rights activist and far-right supporter, has died, according to her foundation. She was 91.
“The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announces with immense sadness the passing of its Founder and President, Brigitte Bardot, the world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her Foundation,” the foundation said in a statement to CBS News.
Bruno Jacquelin, with the foundation, told the Associated Press that the late actress died Sunday in southern France. He gave no cause of death and said no arrangements have yet been made for funeral or memorial services. She had been hospitalized last month.
Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualized teen bride in the 1956 movie “And God Created Woman.” Directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of the long-legged beauty dancing on tables naked.
At the height of a cinema career that spanned some 28 films and three marriages, Bardot came to symbolize a nation bursting out of bourgeois respectability. Her tousled, blond hair, voluptuous figure and pouty irreverence made her one of France’s best-known stars.
French actress Brigitte Bardot poses with a sombrero she brought back from Mexico, as she arrives at Orly Airport in Paris, France, on May 27, 1965.
AP
Such was her widespread appeal that in 1969 her features were chosen to be the model for “Marianne,” the national emblem of France and the official Gallic seal. Bardot’s face appeared on statues, postage stamps and even on coins.
“We are mourning a legend,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote Sunday on social media.
Bardot’s second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. She traveled to the Arctic to blow the whistle on the slaughter of baby seals; she condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments; and she opposed Muslim slaughter rituals.
“Man is an insatiable predator,” Bardot told The Associated Press on her 73rd birthday, in 2007. “I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that suffers, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.”
Her activism earned her compatriots’ respect and, in 1985, she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the nation’s highest recognition.
A turn to the far right
Later, however, she fell from public grace as her animal protection diatribes took on a decidedly extremist tone. She frequently decried the influx of immigrants into France, especially Muslims.
She was convicted and fined five times in French courts of inciting racial hatred, in incidents inspired by her opposition to the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep during annual religious holidays.
Bardot’s 1992 marriage to fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale, a onetime adviser to National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, contributed to her political shift. She described Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist with multiple racism convictions of his own, as a “lovely, intelligent man.”
In 2012, she wrote a letter in support of the presidential bid of Marine Le Pen, who now leads her father’s renamed National Rally party. Le Pen paid homage Sunday to an “exceptional woman” who was “incredibly French.”
In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Bardot said in an interview that most actors protesting sexual harassment in the film industry were “hypocritical” and “ridiculous” because many played “the teases” with producers to land parts.
She said she had never had been a victim of sexual harassment and found it “charming to be told that I was beautiful or that I had a nice little ass.”
A privileged, but “difficult” upbringing
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born Sept. 28, 1934, to a wealthy industrialist. A shy, secretive child, she studied classical ballet and was discovered by a family friend who put her on the cover of Elle magazine at age 14.
Bardot once described her childhood as “difficult” and said her father was a strict disciplinarian who would sometimes punish her with a horse whip.
But it was French movie producer Vadim, whom she married in 1952, who saw her potential and wrote “And God Created Woman” to showcase her provocative sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and raw sexuality.
The film, which portrayed Bardot as a bored newlywed who beds her brother-in-law, had a decisive influence on New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and came to embody the hedonism and sexual freedom of the 1960s.
The film was a box-office hit, and it made Bardot a superstar. Her girlish pout, tiny waist and generous bust were often more appreciated than her talent.
“It’s an embarrassment to have acted so badly,” Bardot said of her early films. “I suffered a lot in the beginning. I was really treated like someone less than nothing.”
Bardot’s unabashed, off-screen love affair with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant further shocked the nation. It eradicated the boundaries between her public and private life and turned her into a hot prize for paparazzi.
Bardot never adjusted to the limelight. She blamed the constant press attention for the suicide attempt that followed 10 months after the birth of her only child, Nicolas. Photographers had broken into her house two weeks before she gave birth to snap a picture of her pregnant.
Nicolas’ father was Jacques Charrier, a French actor whom she married in 1959 but who never felt comfortable in his role as Monsieur Bardot. Bardot soon gave up her son to his father, and later said she had been chronically depressed and unready for the duties of being a mother.
“I was looking for roots then,” she said in an interview. “I had none to offer.”
In her 1996 autobiography “Initiales B.B.,” she likened her pregnancy to “a tumor growing inside me,” and described Charrier as “temperamental and abusive.”
Bardot married her third husband, West German millionaire playboy Gunther Sachs, in 1966, but the relationship again ended in divorce three years later.
Among her films were “A Parisian” (1957); “In Case of Misfortune,” in which she starred in 1958 with screen legend Jean Gabin; “The Truth” (1960); “Private Life” (1962); “A Ravishing Idiot” (1964); “Shalako” (1968); “Women” (1969); “The Bear And The Doll” (1970); “Rum Boulevard” (1971); and “Don Juan” (1973).
With the exception of 1963’s critically acclaimed “Contempt,” directed by Godard, Bardot’s films were rarely complicated by plots. Often they were vehicles to display Bardot in scanty dresses or frolicking nude in the sun.
“It was never a great passion of mine,” she said of filmmaking. “And it can be deadly sometimes. Marilyn (Monroe) perished because of it.”
Bardot retired to her Riviera villa in St. Tropez at the age of 39 in 1973 after “The Woman Grabber.”
Reinventing herself in middle age
She emerged a decade later with a new persona: An animal rights lobbyist, her face was wrinkled and her voice was deep following years of heavy smoking. She abandoned her jet-set life and sold off movie memorabilia and jewelry to create a foundation devoted exclusively to the prevention of animal cruelty.
Her activism knew no borders. She urged South Korea to ban the sale of dog meat and once wrote to then- President Bill Clinton asking why the U.S. Navy recaptured two dolphins it had released into the wild.
Brigitte Bardot with a dog in the Gennevilliers, Paris, while supporting the French animal protection society operation, Feb. 10, 1982.
Duclos / AP
She attacked centuries-old French and Italian sporting traditions including the Palio, a free-for-all horse race, and campaigned on behalf of wolves, rabbits, kittens and turtle doves.
“It’s true that sometimes I get carried away, but when I see how slowly things move forward … my distress takes over,” Bardot told the AP when asked about her racial hatred convictions and opposition to Muslim ritual slaughter.
In 1997, several towns removed Bardot-inspired statues of Marianne after the actress voiced anti-immigrant sentiment. Also that year, she received death threats after calling for a ban on the sale of horse meat.
Bardot once said that she identified with the animals that she was trying to save.
“I can understand hunted animals because of the way I was treated,” Bardot said. “What happened to me was inhuman. I was constantly surrounded by the world press.”
Dec 28 (Reuters) – Tributes to Brigitte Bardot, an icon of French cinema, poured in on Sunday following the announcement of her death at the age of 91. Below are a selection.
FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON
“Her films, her voice, her dazzling fame, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne – Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. A French existence, a universal radiance. She moved us. We mourn a legend of the century.”
(Bardot’s face was used as the model for an official bust of Marianne, an allegorical female figure who symbolizes the values of the French Republic, which was installed in town halls across the country from the late 1960s onward.)
THE BRIGITTE BARDOT FOUNDATION
“Mrs Brigitte Bardot (was) a world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to give up her prestigious career in order to devote her life and energy to the defence of animals and to her Foundation,” it said.
“The Brigitte Bardot Foundation wishes to honour the memory of an exceptional woman who gave everything and gave up everything for a world more respectful of animals.”
FRENCH FAR-RIGHT POLITICIAN JORDAN BARDELLA
“The French people today lose the Marianne they so deeply loved and whose beauty astonished the world. Brigitte Bardot was a woman of heart, conviction, and character. A passionate patriot and a lover of animals that she protected throughout her life, she alone embodied an entire era of French history, and above all a certain idea of courage and freedom.”
FRENCH ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY (SPA FRANCE)
“The SPA pays tribute to Brigitte Bardot, an iconic figure and a passionate advocate for the animal cause. Since the 1970s, and later through her foundation created in the 1980s, she devoted her life to defending those who have no voice. Her unwavering commitment helped change attitudes and achieve major advances in animal protection … Thank you, B.B., for all that you have accomplished.”
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter, America Hernandez, Alessandro ParodiEditing by Frances Kerry)
PARIS, Dec 19 (Reuters) – The French government on Friday called for a Christmas truce with protesting farmers, warning against further blockades during the holiday season, a move the country’s main union said depended on the prime minister’s response to their demands.
Farmers have been blocking roads, dumping manure and holding demonstrations in France for over a week to protest against the government’s management of cattle lumpy skin disease and a trade deal with the South American bloc Mercosur.
Farmers gathered with tractors early on Friday in front of President Emmanuel Macron’s residence in the seaside resort of Le Touquet in northern France, placing a coffin labelled “RIP Agri” and “NO Mercosur”.
Meanwhile, in the southern town of Avignon, farmers threw potatoes at public buildings.
Protesters argue that the government’s policy of culling an entire herd when lumpy skin disease is detected is excessive and cruel. They also claim the EU-Mercosur deal whose signing has been postponed to January would allow massive imports of products not meeting French standards.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu is holding meetings with the main farm unions. The head of the FNSEA, the country’s largest, said Lecornu committed to sending a letter by evening with answers to a range of agricultural issues.
“This letter will be decisive,” FNSEA Chairman Arnaud Rousseau told reporters, adding that the union would then make a decision on whether to suspend the protests.
Government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said on RTL radio that the government would no longer tolerate further blockades and would do “everything necessary” to avoid them.
Young Farmers union President Pierrick Horel said it would observe a Christmas truce.
However, it was still unclear if unions Coordination rurale and the Confederation Paysanne, which have led the blockades, would call off protests.
Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard was due to travel to a farm near Paris later in the day.
(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide and Gus Trompiz; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
PARIS, Dec 19 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday it was too early to say whether a one-month delay to decide on an EU trade deal with South America’s Mercosur bloc will be enough to meet the conditions set by France, but that he hoped so.
Macron, who has pushed for stronger guarantees to protect farmers, said he hoped the EU and Mercosur nations will approve in January measures to ensure South American imports meet the same requirements than European ones.
That would make the pact a “new” Mercosur-EU deal, he said.
PARIS (AP) — A glittering exhibition of royal jewels is opening Wednesday in Paris even as the city still reels from the brazen crown-jewel heist at the nearby Louvre Museum.
The four-minute operation in October emptied cases in the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery, forced its closure and rattled public confidence in France’s cultural security.
With the plundered gallery still sealed off, another museum nearby is showcasing diamonds and tiaras that endured revolutions, exile and empire: treasures that have managed to escape the type of plunder now afflicting the Louvre’s own jewels.
A loaded location
The “Dynastic Jewels” exhibition at the Hôtel de la Marine — itself the site of an infamous 1792 crown-jewel theft — opens at a moment of national sensitivity.
Spread across four galleries, the exhibit unfurls more than a hundred pieces that dazzle in both sparkle and scale. Its objects are drawn from the Al Thani Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and major lenders including King Charles III, the Duke of Fife, Cartier, Chaumet and France’s own national collections.
Some of the most striking loans include the giant 57-carat Star of Golconda diamond; a sapphire coronet and emerald tiara designed by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria, reunited here for the first time in more than 150 years; and Catherine the Great’s diamond-encrusted dress ornaments. A Cartier necklace created for an Indian ruler blends European platinum-age design with centuries-old gems.
Security front and center
Curators didn’t comment on details of operational security. But the Hôtel de la Marine stresses that it was rebuilt with modern, high-grade security when it reopened in 2021, and that its galleries were conceived with robust protections in mind. The museum did not say whether any measures had been strengthened in response to the Louvre heist.
Last month, Louvre director Laurence des Cars announced that roughly 100 new surveillance cameras and upgraded anti-intrusion systems will be installed, with the first measures rolled out in weeks and the full network expected by the end of next year. The Louvre investigation remains active; meanwhile, none of the stolen pieces have been recovered.
Arthur Brand, an Amsterdam-based art detective, said the Louvre heist will have sharpened vigilance at institutions like the Hotel de la Marine.
“Authorities have learned from the Louvre’s lacking security,” he said. “The thieves know that the security people here aren’t going to be sloppy. They will have learned their lesson. It’s a good thing this exhibit is going on. Life goes on. You should not give in to thieves. Show these precious items!”
With the Apollo Gallery closed, the Hôtel de la Marine is suddenly poised to become a prime stop for jewel-lovers — an unfortunate coincidence, or unexpected advantage — a place where visitors shut out of the Louvre’s Crown Jewels displays may naturally gravitate.
Power, prestige and unease
“We show how great gemstones, tiaras and objects of virtuosity reflected identity in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries,” said Amin Jaffer, director of the Al Thani Collection and one of the exhibition’s curators. “They were expressions of power, reflections of prestige and markers of passion.”
That display of privilege and power lands differently today. Just this weekend in Britain, protesters at the Tower of London splattered custard and apple crumble on the display case of a royal crown at an anti-inequality demonstration.
The Louvre robbery has sharpened scrutiny of where such jewels came from. Museums are increasingly pressured to confront provenance more honestly and address the exploitative networks that made the treasures possible.
For some in Paris, the celebration of jewels so soon after the Louvre heist doesn’t feel right.
“Honestly, the timing feels off,” said Alexandre Benhamou, 42, a Paris gift shop manager. “People are still upset about what happened at the Louvre, and now there’s another jewel exhibition opening just down the street. It’s too soon; we haven’t even processed the first shock.”
A building with a memory
Before the Revolution, what was then known as the Hôtel du Garde-Meuble housed the Crown Jewels and royal collections — a history the exhibition directly invokes. That the building’s 18th-century jewels were stolen in 1792 only deepens the irony: this stretch of Paris has witnessed such crimes before.
Despite the charged backdrop, curators say they want visitors to marvel, to dream and to explore the layers of “affection, love, relationships, gift-giving” embedded in the objects.
“Every object here tells a story,” Jaffer told AP. “They’ve changed hands ever since they were made, and they continue to survive.”
WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump expressed concern on Wednesday that Ukraine had not had an election in a long time, putting additional pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
((Reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; Editing by Leslie Adler))
