In later years, they became notorious for increasingly extreme cosmetic surgery with high cheekbones, ever-larger lips and chins and a passing resemblance to the Bride of Wildenstein.

They denied having plastic surgery, saying only that they had undergone “experimentations”.

“We are proud of having faces like extraterrestrials,” they said in 2010.

Neither had been vaccinated against Covid, their friend Luc Ferry, a former education minister, said last week.

Mr Ferry told Le Parisien newspaper that he had urged both of them to get vaccinated “countless times” but they refused on the basis that they were “very sporty, without an ounce of fat”.

“I told them that it was grotesque, they were mad,” he said.

In an interview last month, both raised doubts about the mRNA messenger vaccines, despite their approval by health authorities.

France is currently facing another major wave of Covid infections caused by the highly contagious Omicron variant, with intensive care units facing high volumes of mostly unvaccinated patients.