The French film icon Brigitte Bardot has urged her fellow countrymen not to vote for Emmanuel Macron in France’s presidential election on Sunday, saying you can see his lack of compassion in “the coldness of his steel eyes”.

The animal rights campaigner tweeted to her followers that they should not vote Macron, fearing the situation for animals would deteriorate under his presidency.

“The contempt he gives to animal suffering can be seen in the total lack of empathy reflected in the coldness of his steel eyes.

“Whilst the scandals are increasing, he takes the side of the animal breeders and the hunters against animal rights associations that are fighting with the lobbies that seem to have power over this candidate.”

One of the best-known sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, Bardot came out as a supporter of populist candidate Marine Le Pen at the beginning of the year. In a wide-ranging interview with Le Figaro that touched upon cultural issues, Ms. Bardot was asked what she thought of contemporary culture.

“We live in a period when everything is vulgar, ordinary, and mediocre,” Bardot said. “France no longer has the radiance, the majesty it had.”

When asked if she was close to Le Pen’s anti-mass migration party, the Front National, the actress responded:

“I am very patriotic. I was raised by a father and a grandfather who fought for France and instilled in me a love of my homeland. I am not proud of what France is today… I’m not a ‘facho’ [fascist], any more than Marine Le Pen is.”

“Marine Le Pen has the will to take France in hand, to restore borders and give priority to the French.”

Acknowledged as a symbol of woman’s liberation, Bardot told Le Figaro she was against the Muslim face veil.

“Communitarianism takes on too much importance. It is the culmination of thirty years of laxity.”

She is also a vocal opponent of Muslim halal slaughter, which often involves slaughtering an animal without stunning it, causing pain and distress before death.

Regarded as a free speech activist, the 82-year-old actress has faced trial five times between 1997 and 2008 for “inciting racial hatred” including for comments criticising mass Muslim immigration in France.

On one of these occasions, she was convicted for “decrying the loss of French identity and tradition due to the ‘multiplication of mosques while our church bells fall silent for want of priests’”.