French Screen Diva Threatens to Join Russia Exodus

LONDON - Brigitte Bardot, the fifties-to-sixties movie icon, is the latest celebrity to announce plans to flee to Russia to escape her native France.

“I'm serious. I've had it up to here! I can't stand this country any longer,” the retired screen goddess told the daily Nice Matin in its Saturday edition.

Ms. Bardot has been a prominent cheerleader for Gérard Depardieu, her fellow superstar, in his decision to leave France to escape the Socialist government's plans for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Her gripe, however, is not about taxes but rather over the fate of two tubercular elephants at a provincial zoo in Lyon that local authorities have threatened to kill on health grounds. The fate of Baby and Nepal has spurred an 80,000-strong (and growing by the second) online petition and a series of celebrity protests.

If the pachyderms die, “BB” will pack her bags for Moscow, the animal-loving diva warned on Friday. She is upset that her personal plea for clemency to President François Hollande has gone unanswered.

She might find she will be joining Mr. Depardieu in self-imposed exile after the decision of President Vladimir V. Putin this week to grant the actor citizenship.

Both French stars are admirers of the Russian president. Ms. Bardot praised his “humanity” in the Nice Matin interview and claimed he had done more for animal pr otection than a succession of French leaders.

Not so, according to social media commentators at Twitter's trending hashtag #JeDemandeLaNationaliteRusse - I Want Russian Nationality - who highlighted the Russian leader's predilection for shooting tigers and harpooning whales.

Ms. Bardot announced her decision to seek Russian nationality in a press communiqué from the animal protection foundation that bears her name. It would enable her to escape a country that was now “nothing more than an animal cemetery.”

A supporter of the far-right National Front, she told Nice Matin that one good thing about Russia was that it did not have the Feast of the Sacrifice at which Muslims traditionally sacrifice sheep.

The announcement was widely ridiculed by government officials and lampooned in the French media.

Benoît Hamon, the social economy minister, suggested Ms. Bardot should propose marriage to Mr. Depardieu. And Michèle Delaunay, Minister for the Elderly and Dependent Care, said, “I have a long list of people I would like to see in Russia.”

Nora Berra, a former minister from the center-right opposition UMP, said the star's “unworthy and somewhat ridiculous threat” was an insult to the honor of being French and turned nationality into an instrument of blackmail.

The eccentric Ms. Bardot has displayed a talent for controversy since her 1960s heyday when she was chosen as the model for Marianne, the mythical national symbol of the French Republic.

She told Nice Matin she was now ready to bequeath her iconic status to Russia.