I Sat Next To Brigitte Bardot On The Bus In Nice

Okay, no. I did NOT sit next to the late French actress, Brigette Bardot. But it very easily could have been her.

I was there on holiday with a group which included my partner, family and friends. After an excursion we took to a monastery in the back country, we decided to take a local bus back down to the city. As it was crowded, I took a seat in the back and I happened to sit next to an elegant, elderly white French lady.

In my mind’s memory, she resembled Lauren Bacall as she appeared in her late 70’s. Stylish, poised, cultured and monied, the latter being something of the distant past since she was condemned to taking a bus with all of us rubes and sunblock slathered tourists.

She spoke impeccable French. And, for some reason, she took a shine to me. Even after I told her in my egregious French that I was not fluent in any way, she began a conversation with me that spanned the hour and a half ride down through the lush hills of the south of France.

She spoke of her childhood. The post-war struggles and sacrifices. Something about living in a one room flat in Marseille with either her lover or a really close friend. Honestly, I was having great difficulty translating the details. I covered for that by giving the wry smile many French often do as if to say we know what you are saying. Essentially, “ah, mais oui.”

As the bus neared Nice, more passengers got on and off respectively. And many of them, based on clothing and language, seemed to be of either an Asian, Sub-Saharan African or Middle-Eastern culture. And this is when I noticed the change. The lovely white French lady sitting next to me, the same one who had been telling me stories about her life in France, changed. Her demeanor. Her cadence. Her eyes.

Even with my poor French, I could hear the disdain. These people were “not French” according to her. And they were allegedly ruining French culture. “France devient un mauvais pays à cause d’eux,” or something like that. And I knew where this conversation was going.

For the remaining journey on that bus I had to listen to her mock and dehumanize any non-white passenger that came aboard. As she spoke, I remembered how the French brutalized Algeria. How thousands were tortured and killed during the occupation. French colonialism has often been romanticized to a degree unlike British and other European colonial projects. But it was no less horrendous than any of them. And in her I saw the face of French imperialism. Pretty, elegant, condescending and cruel.

When we finally reached our destination, she bid me au revoir and I stepped out onto the crowded promenade along the Mediterranean in Nice. I was grateful that journey was finally over. But I have thought about her in recent days since hearing about the death of the French actress, Brigette Bardot.

Bardot was known for her animal advocacy and activism. But she is also infamous for her loathsome fascist politics. She was friends with Jean-Marie Le Pen and other far-right nationalists. In fact, her husband was one of Le Pen’s top advisors. And she was convicted and fined at least six times for inciting racial hatred. In addition to her Islamophobia and racism, Bardot dehumanized queer people, calling them “fairground freaks,” and mocked the women who came forward to expose the abuse they experienced by powerful men in the Hollywood film industry.

Unlike the lady I sat next to on that bus in Nice, Bardot had enormous influence. And she used that influence every chance she could to peddle in social hatred. Now that she is dead, she is being lionized in social media as a champion of sexual liberation and a tireless advocate for animal rights. In much the same way as Charlie Kirk, her own legacy is being sanitized by those who choose to see her as “complicated” rather than an odious person who dehumanized marginalized people throughout her long life.

None of this is to say that we should expect anyone to be flawless. Far from it. We are all human and we all say or do things that harm others, whether intentionally or not. But this is about lifelong patterns. About making it a point (whether in books or public engagement) to double down on social hatred, racism, bigotry and fascist ideology. There is a difference between being human and making your life a billboard of hatred.

I didn’t sit next to Brigitte Bardot on that bus in Nice several years ago. But she could have easily been her based solely on the bigotry, the racism and the poised French elegance that thinly masked it all.

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