Tributes to Jane Birkin
At the age of 76, Jane Birkin passed away on Sunday, July 16th, 2023. Since the announcement was made, after the lifeless body of the singer was found by her caretaker at her home in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, tributes have been numerous. Long-time friends such as Etienne Daho, as well as Sheila and Brigitte Bardot, have expressed their condolences. “When you are as beautiful, as fresh, as spontaneous, with a childlike voice, you don’t have the right to die,” the actress wrote on Twitter.
Françoise Hardy’s Reaction
For the most French of Englishwomen, Françoise Hardy also paid tribute, devastated by the death. Like Jane Birkin, Françoise Hardy was also an icon of the 1960s and 1970s. Two talented singers with a slender silhouette and unparalleled beauty. It was on RTL that the mother of Thomas Dutronc reacted to the death of Jane Birkin, shocked. “I had sent her a text message on Saturday, because I hadn’t received one since the end of June. It was Thomas (Dutronc, her son), who works in the south, who informed me. It was a great shock and I am very affected,” said the singer. She, who suffers from the treatments of her pharyngeal cancer and her lymphatic cancer, finds it difficult to express herself and thus wrote these words. “I hope her death was not too painful because she had suffered enough, and I think of her daughters and her family who were everything to her,” she continued.
Jane Birkin’s Personality
On BFMTV, a banner announces a very painful confession from Françoise Hardy about the death of her friend. “I thought I would leave before her,” she confided, often evoking the end of life. While we have seen the daughters of Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, with a sad face, leaving their mother’s home, Françoise Hardy remembers the personality of the latter. A woman “very funny”, whose “fantasy” and “surreal side” she praises. “It was above all her personality, everything she exuded, her way of being, that seduced me. I knew her before she sang,” said the former companion of Jacques Dutronc, who had known Jane Birkin when she was in a relationship with Serge Gainsbourg. It was with the latter that Françoise Hardy always saw Jane. “When she left him, I became even closer to Serge,” she said. For Jane Birkin, Françoise Hardy wrote the title La Pleine lune in 1998, for the album À la légère.
