Film star turned animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has urged Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and the Maltese people to "stop eating horses".

"Although the island of Malta seems to a [sic] paradise for humans, it is hell for animals!" the celebrity activist wrote in an open letter to Dr Muscat.

Ms Bardot, who was once described as "a locomotive of women's history" by feminist and intellectual Simone de Beauvoir, told Malta's Prime Minister that she often received letters from tourists shocked by the way horses were "left to their fate in a shocking state of decrepitude".

The former actress ascribed this callousness to the fact that Maltese still eat horsemeat and suggested Dr Muscat should take a stance and ban the "monstrous aberration".

Ms Bardot during her film star days in 1962. Photo: Wikipedia

"The horse, like the dog, is a life companion not an edible product," she wrote, before appealing to Dr Muscat's pride. "Sometimes politicians show courage," she wrote, "maybe you are one of them?"

Ms Bardot also offered a solution to Malta's proliferation of stray cats, suggesting a sterilisation campaign "as we do in France."

Perhaps concerned that Dr Muscat might not legislate to ban the eating of horse meat, Ms Bardot also penned another open letter addressed to the Maltese people.

"Animals, especially horses are wonderful, intelligent, instinctive and fearful beings," she wrote. "I'm asking you from the bottom of my heart to stop eating horses."

Animal rights activism

Following a glittering career as an actress, singer and fashion model, Ms Bardot swapped the red carpet for activists' robes, using her fame to promote animal rights.

Over the past decades, she has become a leading proponent in the drive to ban the consumption of horsemeat, having also campaigned against seal hunting in Canada, dolphin killing in the Faroe Islands and bullfighting in France.

In 1986 she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals, which she continues to lead to this day.

But Ms Bardot's equine empathy stands in sharp contrast to her political views. Ms Bardot has been convicted for inciting racial hatred on at least five occasions, writing articles and letters opposed to Muslim "invaders" and attacking what she called the mixing of genes. 

Earlier this year, the former actress urged her compatriots to vote for far-right leader Marine Le Pen, telling voters that eventual winner Emmanuel Macron's "steel eyes" reflected a "total lack of empathy."

See Ms Bardot's open letters in the pdf files below.