She was the favorite Englishwoman of the French, a fashion icon and a voice tinged with a delicious accent. Jane Birkin died at the age of 76, found lifeless on Sunday in Paris, after leaving her mark on song and cinema.
The information, given by the daily The Parisian and the chain BFM TVwas confirmed to AFP by a source familiar with the matter.
“Because she embodied freedom, because she sang the most beautiful words of our language, Jane Birkin was a French icon,” President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter.
Same praise from Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne who hailed on Twitter “an unforgettable icon who has transcended generations”.
This Londoner of origin, naturalized French, whose name is inseparable from that of Serge Gainsbourghad recently announced serious health problems which had forced her to cancel concerts.
She appeared weakened in February during the last Cesar ceremony, the French cinema awards, alongside her daughter, the actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourgwho devoted a documentary to him in 2021 Jane by Charlotte.
“There are celebrities that you think ‘oh, they probably won’t be with us very long.’ I was hoping Jane Birkin would still be there,” Jenny Hunt, an embroiderer in front of the rue de Verneuil house where Jane Birkin lived with Gainsbourg, told AFP.
Jane Birkin has achieved global success with songs like I love you…me neitherduet with Gainsbourg in 1969 with the scent of scandal, Jane B the same year or ex sixties fan in 1978. The public appreciated her for her sensitivity, underlined by the delicate British accent which she retained throughout her life.
“Eternal in our hearts”
“Unimaginable to live in a world without your light”, wrote on Instagram the singer Étienne Daho, one of his relatives, who co-composed his last album, Oh sorry you were sleeping… (2020). Sheila, Patrick Bruel, Benjamin Biolay also saluted his memory.
“When you are so pretty, so fresh, so spontaneous, with a child’s voice, you have no right to die,” said actress Brigitte Bardot in a statement sent to AFP, saluting an artist “eternal in our hearts”.
“So funny, so smart, so fragile, so generous, if anything! “, wrote on Twitter the actor Pierre Richard, who formed with her, on the screen, an often whimsical couple.
The fashion world also saluted on Sunday the memory of the one who gave her name to a bag from the Hermès brand, among the most expensive in the world. The creator of Balmain, Olivier Rousteing evoked the disappearance of an “icon”, whose style alternating between bohemian-chic and sexy transparent dresses served as an inspiration to many.
In the cinema, Jane Birkin has long played small roles, starting in Blow-up d’Antonioni, Palme d’or 1967, then The swimming pool with Romy Schneider and Alain Delon in 1969, before asserting herself with directors like Agnès Varda.
Commitments
The relationship with Gainsbourg, whom she met on a film set in 1968, was decisive. And made the couple a mythical duo of seventies Paris, mixing passion, glamor and scandals. To the point of seeing today their two first names taken over by fashion brands.
Jane will end up suffocating in front of him, locked up in his excesses which are sometimes coupled with outbursts of violence. In 1981, she fled their apartment, with her daughters Kate and Charlotte, and rebuilt her life with the filmmaker Jacques Doillonwith whom she will have her third daughter Lou.
Long after Gainsbourg’s death in 1991, and despite hardships including the sudden death of her daughter Kate in 2013, then a leukemia that took a long time to heal, she always sang Serge’s work.
Jane Birkin was an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and, in France, Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. But she refused the Legion of Honor in 1989, believing that “only heroes” should receive it.
It was his way of greeting his father, David, a Royal Navy officer who transported resistance fighters from Britain to France during World War II, and who died the day of Serge Gainsbourg’s funeral.
“Today, we are losing a total icon whose accent could whisper to us the hymns of an era as well as defend his commitments on the international scene: solidarity, the reception of migrants, the fight against extreme right, freedom,” welcomed Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak.