Brigitte Bardot - Bardot Wants End To Religious Animal Slaughter

The French film legend, 76, has become a champion of animal issues over the last few years, and spent 2010 bidding to end bullfighting in Spain, curb seal hunting in Canada and halt the killing of pilot whales in Denmark.

She has now turned her attention to the traditional ritual slaughter of animals in the Jewish and Islamic faiths - and has aligned The Brigitte Bardot Foundation with six other similar campaign groups in France to kickstart 2011 with a nationwide poster campaign featuring a gruesome image of a cow's head.

Bardot tells AFP, "I can no longer accept that in order to please a god animals have their throats slit like in the Middle Ages without being stunned beforehand, when we have modern methods to prevent animals suffering."

The activists aim to place over 2,000 posters across France in the coming weeks. The country is home to an estimated five to six million Muslims and boasts Europe's biggest Jewish community, numbering 700,000 people.