PARIS (Reuters) – Hundreds of fans joined film legends and family members to bid farewell to British-born actress and singer Jane Birkin at her funeral in Paris on Monday.
Film star Catherine Deneuve, singer Vanessa Paradis and first Lady Brigitte Macron were among the mourners in the Saint-Roch church.
Outside, tearful fans waving banners marked with “Jane Forever” and “Thank you Jane Birkin” watched the ceremony on a giant screen on the corner of Rue des Pyramides and Rue Saint-Honore.
Birkin’s songs, including “La Javanaise”, played through speakers across the French capital’s first arrondissement.
“I already feel the vacuum she is leaving. This is my mother, our mother,” Birkin’s daughter, the actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg, told mourners in the church.
“Mother, thank you for not being ordinary and reasonable,” her other daughter, the actress and singer Lou Doillon, said during the ceremony.
Other mourners included singers Alain Souchon, Etienne Daho, who composed her last album, and Matthieu Chedid.
President Emmanuel Macron declared Birkin “a French icon” after her death was announced on July 16 at the age of 76.
Overseas, she was best known overseas for her sensual 1969 hit “Je t’aime … moi non plus”, performed with her then lover Serge Gainsbourg.
In France, where she had lived since the late 1960s, she became a well-known and much-loved figure for her songs, roles in dozens of films and the stance she took on a range of issues including women’s and LGBT rights.
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
