Legendary French singer and actress Francoise Hardy has died at the age of 80 after a long battle with cancer.
Hardy, known the world over for her crystalline voice and melancholy lyrics, suffered with different types of the disease, including lymphoma and laryngeal, over two decades.
It made her a passionate advocate for euthanasia, as she declared her home nation ‘inhuman’ for not allowing the procedure.
Her son Thomas Dutronc, whose father is fellow singer Jacques Dutronc, announced her death in a simple post to Instagram tonight which read: ‘Mum is gone.’
Hardy rose to prominence at just 18 with her first hit ‘Tous les Garcons et les Filles’ (‘All the Boys and Girls’) in 1962, and helped found the ye-ye style of music, a pop-inspired cultural movement that embraced British and American rock in the 1960s.
Her status as a cultural juggernaut saw her schmooze with the biggest names in showbusiness at the time, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan.
She also worked with songwriters including Serge Gainsbourg, Patrick Modiano, Michel Berger and Catherine Lara.
Legendary French singer Francoise Hardy (pictured in 1967) has died at the age of 80, her son said on Tuesday
Her status as a cultural juggernaut saw her schmooze with the biggest names in showbusiness at the time, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mick Jagger (pictured together in 1967)
Beyond her songwriting, Hardy was sought after as a model (pictured in 1966)
Hardy (pictured in 1970) was the only French artist to appear in a 2023 ranking of the greatest ever singers published by Rolling Stone magazine
The star (pictured in 2001) worked with songwriters including Serge Gainsbourg, Patrick Modiano, Michel Berger and Catherine Lara
Shs was married to Jacques Dutronc (pictured), with whom she had a child named Thomas
But her life wasn’t always so glamourous or happy.
Hardy grew up in postwar Paris an anxious child with a complex family situation, she told the Daily Mail in 2011.
The product of a torrid affair between a young woman and an already-married man twenty years her senior, her parents raised her while separately – her mother worked long hours to put food on the table, while her father rarely visited, although he insisted that her mother pay for Françoise to attend convent school.
She revealed her grandmother constantly undermined the way she looked as she grew up.
‘She had told me throughout my childhood that I was ugly and that I was the worst creature on earth. I was concerned I would never meet anybody and that I would become a nun,’ she recalled at the time.
Paris Match magazine quoted her as saying last year that she wanted to ‘go soon and quickly, without much suffering’.
Her later years were marred by illness, with Hardy being put into an induced coma at one point, before her life was saved by a novel form of radiation.
She was a leading advocate for assisted suicide near the end of her life, telling the magazine that it was ‘inhumane’ for France not to legalise the controversial procedure.
‘It is not for the doctors to accede to each request, but to shorten the unnecessary suffering of an incurable disease from the moment it becomes unbearable.’
Francoise Hardy (pictured in Paris in 1971) endured a 20-year-long battle with cancer
Since her diagnosis, her life was marred by illness, at one point being put in an induced coma (pictured performing in 1988)
She joked at the time that while she would’ve loved to have chosen to end her own life, ‘given my small notoriety, no one will want to run the risk of being removed from the medical order even more.’
In one of her last interviews before her death, she said the one thing she would miss was her son.
She told Le Parisien: ‘I think above all of the immense sorrow of leaving my son, of causing him pain.
‘But I would much rather die than suffer prolonged unbearable conditions. And I always have in the back of my mind the idea that there is something next.’
Hardy, known the world over for her crystalline voice and melancholy lyrics, suffered with different types of cancer , including lymphoma and laryngeal, since 2004
Hardy starred in the 1966 film Grand Prix alongside Antonio Sabato (pictured)
Beyond her songwriting, she was sought after as a model, with Yves Saint Laurent and Paco Rabanne both personally making outfits for her
She would regularly visit London at the height of the Swinging Sixties, and admitted that she felt far better in the UK than she ever did in France.
Hardy told the Daily Mail in 2011: ‘From the moment I went to England, I had more confidence. In France, the image I had was of a shy girl – a poor lonely girl and not too good-looking.
‘When I went to England I had another image. I felt the journalists were much more interested in my looks than in my songs.’
Beyond her songwriting, she was sought after as a model, with Yves Saint Laurent and Paco Rabanne both personally making outfits for her.
She also graced the silver screen, starring in a string of films in quick succession, including Castle in Sweden (1963), A Bullet in the Heart (1965) and Grand Prix (1966).
Her final film was Claude Lelouch’s If it had to be done again (1976), in which she played herself.
Castle in Sweden (1963). Then A Bullet in the Heart (1965) by Jean-Daniel Pollet and Grand Prix (1966) by John Frankenheimer. She appears briefly in What’s New, Pussycat? (Cliver Donner, 1965),
She was a leading advocate for assisted suicide near the end of her life (pictured in New York in 1965)
Hardy (pictured in Milan in the 1960s) grew up in postwar Paris an anxious child with a complex family situation, she told the Daily Mail in 2011
She revealed her grandmother constantly undermined the way she looked as she grew up
As one of the leading cultural icons of the 1960s, she rubbed shoulders with the likes of Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan and Salvador Dali
Jane Birkin and Francoise Hardy in 1974 on a fashion shoot
Tributes to the iconic singer have already begun pouring in.
France’s culture minister, Rachida Dati, said in a post to X: ‘How to say goodbye to her? Eternal Françoise Hardy, legend of French song, who entered, through her sensitivity and her melodies, into the heart of an entire country.
‘I send my warmest thoughts to Thomas Dutronc, her son, her family and her loved ones.’
Far-right politician Marine Le Pen said on X: ‘Françoise Hardy, icon of French song, left this evening. Several generations have been touched by her melancholy voice and the poetry of her texts. My condolences to her family.’
