French court convicts Brigitte Bardot over animal-related remarks

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Brigitte Bardot was convicted Tuesday of provoking discrimination and racial hatred for writing that Muslims are destroying France, the Associated Press reports.

A Paris court also handed down a $23,325 fine against the former screen siren. The court ordered Bardot to pay $1,555 in damages to MRAP, a leading French anti-racism group that filed a lawsuit last year over a letter she sent to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. The remarks were published in her foundation’s quarterly journal.

In the December 2006 letter to Sarkozy, now the French president, Bardot said France is ‘tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts.’

Bardot, 73, an animal rights activist, was referring to a Muslim feast celebrated by slaughtering sheep.

French laws prevent inciting hatred and discrimination on racial or religious grounds.

Bardot had been convicted four times for inciting hatred.

--Francisco Vara-Orta