Brigitte Bardot laid to rest in funeral ceremony broadcast across Saint-Tropez | Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Bardot, the film star turned animal rights activist, will be laid to rest in her home town of Saint-Tropez on Wednesday during a funeral attended by her favourite politician, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Bardot died at her La Madrague villa on 28 December aged 91. Her funeral, which is being broadcast on large screens across the town, is being held at the Notre-Dame de l’Assomption church.

Speaking before the service, her husband, Bernard d’Ormale, said Bardot had died of cancer. Without specifying the type of cancer, d’Ormale told Paris Match his wife had dealt “very well” with two operations before the disease “took her” last month.

Bardot shot to international fame in the 1950s and was credited for revolutionising French cinema with films such as And God Created Woman, while defying tradition to become a symbol of sexual liberation.

However, she retired from acting in the 1970s and became an outspoken campaigner for animal rights. She also became increasingly active politically on the far right, alienating some fans in her later life with her hardline public views on immigration.

Bardot was convicted five times for hate speech, particularly about Muslims, and up until her death, she expressed her contentment at Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally party’s rising share of the vote before the 2027 presidential race.

On Wednesday there were cheers as the funeral procession passed through the Place des Lices and by the port of Saint-Tropez before Bardot’s coffin entered the church as a song by Maria Callas played, Nice-Matin reported.

Along with Bardot’s family, including her son, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, 65, among those attending the funeral were the French singers Jean-Roch and Mireille Mathieu, the TV personality Caroline Margeridon, and Paul Watson, the Canadian-American marine conservation and animal rights activist.

Le Pen, who has cited Bardot as a model for Marianne, the female symbol of the French republic – as the ultimate symbol of Frenchness – was also there. There was mutual admiration between the two women: Bardot once referred to Le Pen as a modern-day “Joan of Arc”.

Bardot’s devotion to campaigning for animal rights was expected to be a key theme of the funeral commemorations.

“The ceremony will reflect who she was, with the people who knew and loved her. There will no doubt be some surprises, but it will be simple, just as Brigitte wanted,” Bruno Jacquelin, the spokesperson for the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, told AFP beforehand.

But her death prompted a mixed reaction. Sandrine Rousseau, a politician with the Greens, said: “To be moved by the fate of dolphins but remain indifferent to the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean – what level of cynicism is that?”