Actress Claudia Cardinale may have been a Sixties legend of Italian and French cinema, but in Tunisia, in the portside district where she grew up, she says she feels “at home”.
“I left very young, but I spent my whole childhood here, my adolescence,” said Cardinale, now 84. “My origins are here.”
To celebrate her connection to the North African country, authorities on Sunday named a street after her in the La Goulette suburb of the capital Tunis, where petals were scattered in a ceremony in her honour.
“You marked the world of cinema for almost half a century with your dazzling beauty, your charisma and through the roles you played,” said Amel Limam, the mayor of La Goulette.
“I am very honoured, because it is here that I was born and spent my childhood,” Cardinale said. “I kiss you!”
The multicultural beachfront neighbourhood was once home to a sizeable Sicilian population – including Cardinale’s parents.
Before Tunisia’s independence from France in 1956, more than 130,000 Italians were resident. Many of their ancestors had settled there before French colonial rule.
“I still keep a lot of Tunisia inside me – the scenery, the people, sense of welcome, the openness,” Cardinale told AFP. (RTE)