France, Dec. 29 -- Images of the screen diva were splashed across media outlets around the globe following the announcement of her death on Sunday. Many also analysed her role as a catalyst for changes in France.

Bardot's libertine attitude in her breakthrough 1956 movie And God Created Woman outraged censors at the time. And the French Catholic daily La Croix said she had a "career without much success" that she cut short to devote herself to animals.

The left-leaningLiberation newspaper said, however, that Bardot had a "meteoric career".

"She was probably the last of that handful of new and free figures in which France liked to recognise itself at the turn of the 60s," noted Liberation, which called her the "greatest sex symbol of Fr...