Brigitte Bardot receives GAIA's Lifetime Achievement Award

Brussels, 13 October 2019 -

At age 85 - she celebrated them on September 28th - Brigitte Bardot is awarded the GAIA Lifetime Achievement Award.
A statuette that means everything: two open hands carrying seven animals, including a horse, a lamb and a seal.
With the inscription:
"And God created the militant who fights for the rights of animals,"
as a symbol of the power of his efforts and actions.
Michel Vandenbosch, President of GAIA:
"Brigitte Bardot has tirelessly defended animals for almost half a century. This award is a tribute to an icon of the fight for animal rights. "
Bardot has already supported several campaigns by GAIA (EU ban on trade in seal products, against the transport of live animals over long distances, against cruel street horse races, ....).
"I met her several times and each time I was impressed by her charisma and tenderness.
No one deserves this award more than her. "

The Brigitte Bardot Foundation and GAIA are also members of the Board of Directors of Eurogroup for Animals, a European organization that brings together more than 60 associations for the defense of animal welfare.
One of Marianne's models, the allegorical representation of the French Republic, remains one of the pioneers of the animal cause in Europe.
"Brigitte Bardot has been at the forefront of the fight for the animal cause, and even today her actions remind us of the place that must be given to animals",
explains Michel Vandenbosch. And to insist:
"As long as the animal is considered to be an inferior species, to inflict on it all sorts of evils and sufferings, to be killed for our needs, the world will need people as committed as Brigitte Bardot. "

Personal letter On behalf of Brigitte Bardot, Christophe Marie, spokesperson for the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, officially received the award on Sunday in Mons, where the GAIA Day was held.
Earlier this year, Brigitte Bardot herself received her award from Michel Vandenbosch, GAIA President and Ann De Greef, Managing Director of GAIA in Paris.
In a personal letter addressed to the founders of GAIA, Brigitte Bardot expresses her gratitude:
"I rarely get any good news, but what a wonderful surprise to hear that you gave me this wonderful 'Lifetime Achievement Award'.
It's such a precious symbol that I have tears in my eyes! "

"It's the purpose of my life"

When she stopped filming at the age of 39, Brigitte Bardot campaigned against the abandonment of animals at the SPA, the slaughter of baby seals or the horse meat trade.
With varied success.

To act as she sees fit, she sells her personal effects, collects 3 million French francs and creates her foundation to which she bequeaths her properties in La Madrague and Bazoches.

The three refuges of his Foundation welcome 4,000 animals.
"My foundation is my greatest achievement, it's the purpose of my life,"
she writes in her latest biography, Tears of Fight (Plon, 2018).