Anna Karina, an icon of French New Wave cinema, has died at the age of 79.

Axar.az reports citing BBC.

The Danish-French actress died in a hospital in Paris after living with cancer, her agent told AFP news agency.

French culture minister Franck Riester tweeted in tribute: "Today, French cinema has been orphaned. It has lost one of its legends."

Karina rose to prominence as the muse of her director ex-husband Jean-Luc Godard in the 1960s.

She got her big break as a teenager, soon after moving to Paris from her native Denmark - apparently when Godard spotted her walking down the Champs-Elysees.

He wanted to cast her in his first and most famous film Breathless, Karina recalled years later, but she turned him down because the role required nudity.