French/Nat Former film star Brigitte Bardot went to court Thursday to defend herself against charges of racial bias. The 62-year-old former screen siren turned animal rights crusader is charged with \"inciting racial discrimination\" after speaking out against Muslims for sacrificing sheep during their springtime holiday of Eid al-Adha. If convicted, Bardot faces a possible year long prison sentence and a 300-thousand franc (60-thousand U-S dollars) fine. No stranger to avoiding the paparazzi's flashes, Brigitte Bardot managed to get inside the court room without being seen, even by her supporters. She was at the Paris \"Palais de Justice\" Thursday afternoon to play a role she has never played before - defending herself against charges of racial bias. Thanks to her slim figure and long blond hair, Bardot became France's sex-symbol in the 1960's. Internationally, she was better known than De Gaulle as an instantly recognisable ambassador for France. And she even became part of her country - decorative busts modelled after her were placed in most city halls around the country. Now aged 62, the former screen siren has turned animal rights crusader. But it seems that the older she gets, the more extreme her ideas become. In an open letter published in April in the conservative national daily Le Figaro, Bardot compared the ritual sacrifice of Eid al-Adha to \"torture, signs of the most atrocious pagan sacrifices.\" On that occasion, 40 days after the fast of Ramadan, many of France's three million Muslims sacrifice a lamb in a rite of peace. Bardot, who opposes immigration and backs the far-right National Front, claimed France was being \"overrun by an overpopulation of foreigners, mainly Muslim\". \"My homeland, my earth, is again invaded, with the blessing of successive governments, by an overpopulation of foreigners, notably Muslim,\" she wrote. To anti-racist groups, the words of the former star are nothing more than an incitement of racial hatred. SOUNDBITE: (French) \"She makes Muslims the enemy to shoot, which is to say that she basically has the same ideology as the National Front. And in a context in which France is facing growing racism, and growing support to the ideology of the extreme right, it is very dangerous and we cannot accept that she expresses the same kind of ideas. So we expect court to bring Brigitte Bardot back to her senses.\" SUPERCAPTION : Mouloud Aounit, President of the MRAP (Movement against Racism and for friendship between people) Bardot is married to a close adviser of National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. She recently came under fire for calling Le Pen \"a very fine man\" in her best-selling autobiography \"Initials BB\". And at court, her lawyer was trying to minimize the damage she caused, saying that it was less a question of racism than a question of defending animals. SOUNDBITE: (French) \"Brigitte Bardot has always used a very polemicist style. It was just a few sentences of her article which were very aggressive to show how urgent it was to act, and how urgent it was to take measures to protect animals.\" SUPERCAPTION: Walerand de Saint-Just, Brigitte Bardot's lawyer If convicted, Bardot faces a maximum one year prison term and a 300-thousand franc (60-thousand U-S dollars) fine. The court's verdict is expected on 23 January. You can license this story through AP Archive: www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/d82db3ff9a64a0c543b5e9e8dd9170e4 Find out more about AP Archive: www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork

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