Serge Gainsbourg’s Paris home to open to the public – ashtrays still brimming

French singer and composer Serge Gainsbourg and his English companion Jane Birkin, pictured in 1969, the year they moved into the home on rue Verneuil in Paris. © AFP file photo

The time capsule home of Serge Gainsbourg, one of France's most loved – and notorious – singer-songwriters, is to finally open to the public on September 20. 

The house on Paris' Left Bank has been a pilgrimage site for fans since the writer of "Je T'Aime ... Moi Non Plus" – affectionately known in France as "the man with the cauliflower head" – died in 1991.