 Birkin continues to perform into her seventies. (Photo: Getty Images) |
The French Culture Ministry said the country had lost a "timeless Francophone icon".
Local media reported she had been found dead at her home, citing people close to her. Birkin had a mild stroke in 2021 after suffering heart problems in previous years.
She was best known overseas for her 1969 hit in which she and her then-lover, the late French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, sang the sexually explicit “Je t’aime...moi non plus”.
Birkin had lived in her adopted France since the late 1960s and apart from her singing and roles in dozens of films, she was a popular figure for her warm nature, stalwart fight for women's and LGBT rights.
The "most Parisian of the English has left us," said Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. "We will never forget her songs, her laughs and her incomparable accent which always accompanied us."
Jane Mallory Birkin was born in London in December 1946, daughter of British actress Judy Campbell and Royal Navy commander David Birkin.
She first took to the stage aged 17 and went on to appear in the 1965 musical "Passion Flower Hotel" by conductor and composer John Barry, whom she married shortly after. The marriage ended in the late 1960s.
Birkin released "Baby Alone in Babylone" in 1983, and "Amour des Feintes" in 1990, both with words and music by Gainsbourg. She wrote her own album "Arabesque" in 2002, and in 2009 released a collection of live recordings, "Jane at the Palace".