Actress Brigitte Bardot has launched a campaign to ban the religious slaughter of animals in France.

Ms Bardot, along with six other animal rights groups, aims to put up more than 2,000 posters encouraging the government to outlaw both the Jewish practice of shechitah and the Muslim method, halal, of killing animals.

The posters include a graphic image of a cow’s head.

Ms Bardot, 76, wants religious slaughter to be replaced “to prevent animals suffering."

She told AFP: "I can no longer accept that in order to please a god, animals have their throats slit like in the Middle Ages without being stunned beforehand.”

The star, who lives in St Tropez, is a longtime animal rights activist and has campaigned on issues including ending bullfighting and seal hunting, as well as . She set up the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals in 1986.

Ms Bardot has spoken against shechitah and halal on several occasions. Last year she wrote a letter to French President Nicholas Sarkozy calling on him to remember “France is a secular country” and oppose the practices.

Last year Ms Bardot joined Baywatch star Pamela Anderson in calls for Israel to stop religious men from wearing shtreimels (hats) trimmed with fur.

Ms Bardot, who reportedly had a long affair with Jewish singer Serge Gainsbourg, has been fined several times for inciting racial hatred. She is married to Bernard d'Ormale, a former adviser of France’s far-right party the Front National.