An anti-fascist, she opposed the dictatorship of Francisco Franco and was expelled from Spain multiple times for working to promote democratic reforms.

During her exile, she made connections in French intellectual circles and attending the 1973 World Congress of Peace Forces and 1974 Berlin Conference.

A trained pilot, she volunteered with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta during the Nigerian Civil War to fly in resources and provide humanitarian aid.

Princess Cécile Marie was born on 12 April 1935 as the fourth children and third daughter of Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, the Carlist claimant to the Spanish throne and Head of the House of Bourbon-Parma, and his wife Madeleine de Bourbon-Busset, the daughter of the Count de Lignières and a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon.

Princess Cécile was educated in the United States, Quebec,[2] and in Allier before finishing her studies at the Institut Catholique de Paris.

During her youth, the Princess was active in society: on 22 April 1955, she was presented as a debutante at a coming out ball hosted by her parents at the Hôtel Ritz Paris.

[5] She also attended events such as a reception and party at the Hotel Wellington in Madrid in 1959[6] or the Paris Ball held at the French Embassy in Brussels in 1960.

[1] She was expelled from Francoist Spain on several occasions due to her political activism and anti-fascist views, as she worked to recover democratic freedoms that had been taken away by the dictatorship.

[11] In September of the same year she began a visit to various areas of Spain with her sister Marie-Thérèse, and this was seen as a move by the Bourbon-Parma family aimed at the Franco regime who was starting to think about naming Prince Juan Carlos (son of another pretender to the Spanish throne, Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona) as heir to the throne: that the Bourbon-Parma family would not give up their claim to the throne of Spain despite the wedding of Prince Juan Carlos and Princess Sophia of Greece, which took place the year before, in May 1962.

[1][3] When the Nigerian Civil War began in 1967, she volunteered with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta as a pilot, flying into the country to bring humanitarian aid.

[3] She made contacts with various intellectuals while exiled in France including Marcel Niedergang, André Malraux, Louis Leprince-Ringuet, Gaston Monnerville, Bishop Daniel Pezeril, and Manuel Azcárate.

Finally, she was cremated, and her remains were buried in the family crypt in Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Steccata in Parma, Italy, on 18 March 2022.