French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute on Sunday, August 18, to film star Alain Delon, who died aged 88, calling him not just a legendary actor but a "monument."
"Alain Delon played legendary roles and made the world dream. Lending his unforgettable face to turn our lives upside down," Macron wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Melancholy, popular, secretive, he was more than a star: he was a French monument."
Fellow 1960s star Brigitte Bardot told French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) that his death left "a huge void that nothing and no one will be able to fill."
Former president of the Cannes festival Gilles Jacob paid tribute to Delon as "a lion (...) an actor with a steely gaze." Alberto Barbera, director of the Venice Film Festival, said he was an "icon" who had climbed "to the Olympus of the immortals." And French film producer Alain Terzian said Delon was "the last of the giants."
"It's a page being turned in the history of French cinema," he told France Inter radio. Terzian, who produced several films directed by Delon, recalled that "every time he arrived somewhere (...) there was a kind of almost mystical, quasi-religious respect. He was fascinating."