Too sexy even for the radio

Hit Je t'aime with her lover Serge was banned in UK

- SANJEETA BAINS

If there was ever a woman who truly embodied a certain je ne sais quoi, it was Jane Birkin.

She charmed France with her British music and fashion style, becoming most famed for her collaboration with the late Serge Gainsbourg and lending her name to the Hermès Birkin designer handbag.

Her influence spread through fashion, music and film - starring in more than 70 movies and releasing 20 albums.

But the leukaemia she suffered from for more than 20 years had become worse in recent months, and yesterday claimed her life at the age of 76 at her home of 54 years in Paris.

As the "most Parisian of the English", it was only fitting that one of the first to pay tribute was President Emmanuel Macron.

He said: "She embodied freedom, because she sang the most beautiful words of our language, Jane Birkin was a French icon.

The assimilation of a self-procaimed "shy English girl" into French life was impressive. The French even adored her way of speaking French, never losing the plummy vowels of her posh West London upbringing.

Jane Mallory Birkin was born in London on December 14, 1946, to Lt Cdr David Birkin, a naval officer who worked with the French Resistance in the Second World War, and actress Judy Campbell.