PARIS, January 4 (Itar-Tass) — Brigitte Bardot, a legend of the French screen and a dedicated champion of the rights of animals, has made public her plans to file an application for Russian citizenship in protest of what she views as the French authorities’ flagging actions in the defense of animals.
Spokespeople for the Bardot foundation said she had issued an ultimatum to the government earlier in the day, saying she would ask the Russian authorities to grant citizenship to her if the French politicians continued watching idly the situation at a circus in Lyons where the directorate ordered two euthanize two elephants carrying tuberculosis.
Bardot said that if the people holding power act in a cowardly and shameless way and allow killing the two elephants, Baby and Nepal, she will seek a Russian passport to be able to run away from a country that has turned into a cemetery for animals.
A spokesman said Bardot, who had asked President Francois Hollande earlier to save the elephants wrote the statement about her plans herself. The letter to Hollande, in which she said the elephants could still be given treatment, was sent last Wednesday.
The prefect of Lyons ordered to euthanize Baby and Nepal at the end of December, saying the animals were the carriers of tuberculosis. The owner of the circus tried to appeal the decision in the courtroom but Bardot said Baby and Nepal might really die while the court litigation was in progress.
In the light of it, she asked the authorities to permit a new medical examination of the circus elephants.