Jane Birkin Dominates Front Pages As France Mourns Death Of British Actress & Singer; President Declares Her A French Icon
deadline.comJane Birkin graced the front pages of most French newspapers on Monday as France mourned the death of the late British actress and singer who enjoyed icon status in the country that she had called home since the late 1960s. “Our tears can’t change anything,” proclaimed Le Parisien newspaper, which first broke the news of Birkin’s death at the age of 76 on Sunday.
Libération ran with the simple headline “Without Jane”, while regional newspaper Le Maine Libre referred to the late actress as “The Eternal English Bride of France”.
International obituaries have highlighted Birkin’s notorious performance with partner and late bad boy of French pop music Serge Gainsbourg on the 1968 pop song, ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’, or the fact she inspired the Hermès Birkin bag.
For the French, she was much more. In a six-page tribute, Libération mused over the reasons for Birkin’s never-ending popularity in the country she had called home since the late 1960s. “Why this special place, this popularity, which since the 1960s, never waned… Why this strange yet recurrent feeling of being magnetized by even the smallest appearance of Jane Birkin,” wrote the newspaper. “Was it the British accent, so charming but a bit annoying at the same time?
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