Before he died last week, French film icon Alain Delon once said he wanted his beloved sheepdog Loubo buried with him. To the relief of animal lovers around France, Loubo was allowed to live.
Delon, an internationally acclaimed and prolific actor and producer, died on Sunday last week, aged 88.
He was buried on Saturday in a private funeral attended by his children, relatives and close friends as fans mourned outside the gates of his country estate in Douchy, south of Paris, where he was laid to rest near his beloved dogs.
Photo: AP
He was quoted in a 2018 interview with Paris Match as saying he wanted Loubo, a Belgian Malinois he adopted in 2014, buried with him.
“I’ve had 50 dogs in my life, but I have a particular relationship with this one,” he told the magazine. ”If I die before him, I’ll ask the veterinarian for us to leave together... I’d prefer that to knowing that he would let himself die on my tomb amid so much suffering.”
After Delon’s death, animal rights activists raised the alarm about Loubo’s fate.
An official with the Brigitte Bardot Foundation — a prominent animal rights group founded by the famed French film star, who was close with Delon — said he contacted Delon’s family after foundation members expressed concern, while the foundation confirmed on X that the dog would live.
“The family of Alain Delon have confirmed to us that they will take care of him. Loubo will of course not be euthanized,” the foundation wrote in French.
French TV presenter Stephane Bern said Delon’s wish to be buried with his dogs was very him, comparing him to Frederick the Great of Prussia who did the same.
It was a gesture “of majesty and panache, very Delon, worthy of a Leopard who had become a misanthrope,” Bern said in a reference to Delon’s film The Leopard.
France’s Society for the Protection of Animals welcomed the family’s decision.
“Our phone lines were saturated” with calls by people worried about the dog, association president Guillaume Sanchez said.
Loubo “will probably be very sad to have lost the affection of Mr Delon,” but “we are totally against the idea that anyone euthanizes an animal for this reason, Delon or no Delon... Organizations that work to protect animals want society to develop awareness that an animal is an individual, separate being,” Sanchez said.
Additional reporting by AFP
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
RSS