Bardot marks paparazzi-free 80th birthday

French screen siren Brigitte Bardot celebrated her 80th birthday in private on Sunday at her French Riviera home, shunning the spotlight and turning attention back to her beloved animal rights work.

For her birthday, the ageing sex symbol "didn't want anything at all," journalist and writer Henry-Jean Servat, a close friend, told AFP.

Rather than gifts, the ex-movie star turned animal rights defender went on Europe 1 radio and asked her fans "to go to the nearest animal shelter and adopt a little cat or dog, or sponsor it" and also "to eat less meat."

Still, outside her house in Saint Tropez, admirers left some 250 bouquets of flowers, according to Servat.

Inside, Bardot spent her low-key birthday with some members of her animal rights foundation, a few friends and her husband Bernard d'Ormale.

The foundation gave her as a birthday present a special edition of the magazine she edits with best wishes from celebrities and from animal rights associations she has helped.

The woman who left men weak in the knees in the 1950s and 60s did make a very brief public appearance on Friday for photos at the port of Saint Tropez before the "Brigitte Bardot". That's the trimaran of the Sea Shepherd environmental group which had been on a mission against the killing of dolphins off the Faroe islands.

It was 1956 when Bardot set the screen alight in

With age, Bardot has lurched to the far-right, increasingly prone to illiberal remarks on gays, Muslims and immigrants that have led to five convictions for inciting racial hatred.

And now the octogenarian sex icon with her ardent animal rights activism says she has no intention of retiring.