Jane Birkin dies: Macron leads tributes to 'French icon'
Emmanuel Macron led tributes to “French icon” Jane Birkin following the announcement the British-born actress and singer had died in Paris aged 76.
She had made France her home and become known for her musical and romantic involvement with the singer Serge Gainsbourg, which produced their scandalously explicit 1969 duet Je t’aime moi non plus, and as the inspiration for Hermès’ Birkin bag.
Following the announcement yesterday of her death in Paris, the French President led tributes to the actress and singer who had been part of France’s cultural scene for 50 years.
In a statement, the president said: “Because she embodied freedom, because she sang the most beautiful words of our language, Jane Birkin was a French icon.
“A complete artist, her voice was as sweet as her engagements were fiery. She bequeaths us tunes and images that will never leave us.”
France’s prime minister Elisabeth Borne hailed Birkin as “an unforgettable icon, a unique voice and charm”, adding: “Through her music and her talent, she will have transcended the generations.”
Born in London to British actress Judy Campbell and naval officer David Birkin in 1946, she began auditioning for acting roles in the late 1960s, earning a role in the portrait of Swinging London, Blowup.
She came to the attention of French audiences after being cast alongside Gainsbourg in the 1969 French production Slogan, and following this role made France her permanent home.
She was 21 when she first met the 40-year-old Gainsbourg, with whom she would spend the next 12 years in a “tumultuous” relationship dogged by the French singer’s anger and alcoholism.
Their 1969 duet Je t’aime moi non plus caused a sensation for its sexual content, and despite being banned from the radio in numerous countries, reached number one in the UK.
In 1971 the pair had a daughter, Charlotte, who would go on to be a singer and actress.
During Birkin’s life in France, she starred in numerous films directed by leading auteurs, including Alain Resnais and Jean-Luc Goddard, and released a string of albums.
She also inspired the “Birkin Bag” created by French fashion house Hermes, whose chairman Jean-Louis Dumas was inspired after sitting next to Birkin on a flight and noticing her struggling with her luggage, and in need of a larger leather bag.
In a statement, Hermes said the fashion house had “lost a close friend and a long-time companion.”
“With a shared sensitivity, we grew to know each other, we discovered and appreciated the extent to which Jane Birkin’s soft elegance revealed an artist in her own right, committed, open-minded, with a natural curiosity of the world and others,” it said.
Her various influences on French cultural life have been commended by the country’s leaders, with Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak calling her “the most French of Britons”.
In a statement on Twitter, she wrote: “Jane B was mischief, impertinent elegance, the never-outdated emblem of an entire era, a murmuring voice that remains our idol.
“A woman of heart, committed, whose disappearance leaves us Alone In Babylone,” the title of one of Birkin’s songs.
The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo and Menna Rawlings, the British ambassador to France, described Birkin respectively as “the most Parisian of the English” and “the most French of British artists”.
Speaking in 2006, Birkin said that her introduction to France had been as one half of “the most famous of couples”, saying of her new nation: “Paris became my home. I’ve been adopted here. They like my accent.”
Having starred in her final film role in 2016’s La femme et le TGV, Birkin suffered a stroke in 2021 which forced her to cancel planned concerts in France.
Her first child with husband John Barry, Kate Barry was a Vogue fashion photographer who died in 2013 at the age of 46.
Along with Charlotte, Birkin had another daughter, the singer Lou Doillon, from her relationship with the director Jacques Doillon.
