The French President's Woman [Original]

Man trap, serial heart-wrecker, rocker arm candy, photogenic cipher, arrogant heiress, polling gimmick — the woman who appears likely to become the first lady of France has been called a lot of things lately. The last thing anyone would have thought of is that she’s a catch.

Barely three months after his divorce from his wife, Cécilia, the polarizing but media-savvy French president Nicolas Sarkozy has become a principal in a hyper-publicized romance that has even the normally high-minded French press gossiping about the details in goosey tabloid terms.

See the lovers moon around the pyramids and Euro Disney! Watch the Saudis grapple with the free-living ways of the French! Can Indian officials invent protocol to accommodate a First Sleepover Pal?

Will the French public accept a woman who espouses polyandry, has a son by a philosopher whose father she once also dated, and who has been romantically linked with Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger?

Will a whirlwind courtship and marriage ultimately bring Mr. Sarkozy’s approval ratings up from the dumps?

Because model is so often used as a synonym for moron, few have stopped to consider that, in pure résumé terms, Ms. Bruni may be better equipped than many for a gig at Élysée Palace.

For starters, she is a stepdaughter of an Italian tire magnate and classical composer, Alberto Bruni Tedeschi, who is married to her mother, Marisa Borini, a concert pianist.

She is rich and well educated (in France, where her family moved in the 1970s to escape a wave of kidnappings in Italy) and speaks three languages.

It isn’t necessarily the couplings and uncouplings and recouplings (and cheesy photo opportunities) that appear to offend so many who have tuned into a story that is less soap opera than Feydeau farce.

It is the unspoken sense that it is unseemly for those so materially blessed and genetically gifted to want more.

And it may also be the cheekbones. “People always secretly hate the rich and beautiful,” said Long Nguyen, the editor of Flaunt magazine, which in August ran a pictorial spread of Ms. Bruni that made it look as if, at 40, she may even have managed to give age the slip.

“A has-been or a junkie would have been much easier for people to accept,” Mr. Nguyen said.

“It’s not a matter of whether ex-model is a career path for a first lady. It’s that nobody can stand a person who has it all.”

France Is Pissed Off with the Sarkozy Soap Opera

Smooching their way through a five-course lunch yesterday at an exclusive Paris restaurant, President Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni made it clear that they care nothing for what anyone thinks, including their gooseberry guest of honour, Tony Blair.

The former PM was invited to the five-star Hotel Bristol after addressing a rally of Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement party.

But all eyes were on the 40-year-old Bruni, who every now and again lifted her sunglasses to lean in and nuzzle the presidential cheek.

Sarkozy reciprocated with kisses and cuddles, oblivious of any uncomfortable fidgeting from those around them.

A nation that had never so much as seen one of its Presidents wearing a T-shirt has been confronted with a whirlwind romance and the shock of seeing the photographers of even their more serious publications with lenses firmly trained on his ring finger and her tummy.

Ex-second-wife Cécilia has a role in this Gallic soap opera, too. The President who promised a 'rupture' with the past has delivered an earth-shattering shift in France's relationship with power.

But with six Paris-Match covers to his credit since his election in May, Sarkozy is winning the nickname President Bling-Bling, as suspicions grow he may be more style than substance.

On 15 December - two months to the day after he and Cécilia ended their 11-year marriage by signing divorce papers - Sarkozy 'outed' Bruni as his girlfriend with a stroll at Disneyland Paris.

Since then the spectre of Cécilia - now again involved with advertising mogul Richard Attias - has never gone away.

On 23 December, Sarkozy threw a 40th birthday party for Bruni and gave her a €20,000 ($15,000) Dior heart-shaped ring, designed by Cécilia's best friend, Victoire de Castellane.

On Christmas Day the couple flew to Sharm el-Sheikh to meet up with the Blairs. Sarkozy gave Bruni a second ring while she gave him a €45,000 Patek Philippe watch.

Last weekend they were photographed in Jordan - at the spot where Cécilia and Attias, in November 2005, first showed off their love affair.

On Wednesday, the Italian daily La Repubblica pointed out snidely: 'Cécilia may not have happy memories of her ex-husband but at least she knows to keep quiet. Carla on the other hand tends to write songs about her lovers, even to mock them.'

But in the past week Cécilia has spectacularly broken her silence. On Thursday three books went on sale telling of the Sarkozys' marriage. On Friday, she failed in court to have one of them banned.

Even though Le Point journalist Anna Bitton's book, Cécilia, is based on five years of authorised interviews, the former first lady believes it goes too far.

The book paints Sarkozy as an unreconstructed adolescent who enjoys all-night karaoke parties, does not love his children and is a womaniser.

The French media are now divided between supporters of Nicolas and Cécilia.

Glossing over the nine-point collapse in Sarkozy's confidence rating since June, Friday's Le Figaro produced a poll showing 60 per cent of respondents welcomed Sarkozy's openness over Bruni.

But a survey in Le Parisien, for which Cécilia is 'a heroine', had only 39 per cent feeling confident in Sarkozy.

The enduring effect of the Bruni-Sarkozy saga will be to wipe out the French media's silence over politicians' private lives.

The love child of President Mitterrand was first seen at his funeral. Journalists kept quiet on President Chirac's numerous affairs. But it has taken just a few weeks for the country's privacy laws to seem a distant memory.

The shift has come not from the media, but from an image-hungry Sarkozy, who is accused of using his private life to obscure political failures.

The President's divorce was announced on 18 October, the day of a huge transport strike. Bruni's first public appearance on Sarkozy's arm came as the media were focusing on a state visit to Paris by Libya's Muammar Gadaffi.

At his New Year press conference last Tuesday, Sarkozy titillated reporters with the idea of a secret marriage to Bruni and fobbed off a question about his government's failure to boost consumer spending power.

Sarkozy's record since his election includes giving himself a pay increase of between 172 and 206 per cent - depending on whose figures you use - and cutting wealth tax to woo back rich exiles like crooner Johnny Hallyday (who still has not returned).

Sarkozy last week backed down on his assertion that the 35-hour week would be phased out in 2008. An action plan for France's riot-prone city suburbs has been downgraded to a ministerial mission.

The President's much-heralded clampdown on benefit fraud has become bogged down in vague wording. Among his few successes has been to take a leading role in pushing through the mini-treaty for the EU constitution.

According to satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, even Prime Minister François Fillon is exasperated.

'He giggles at anything. He just wants to tell jokes or talk about bums. When we talk to the President, he does not always listen. He cancels meetings, which is not like him. Where will it end?'

The advantage of it ending in nuptials would be to create a first lady. This would do away with protocol problems in India, where Sarkozy is expected for a state visit on 24 January.

It is understood that Bruni will not accompany Sarkozy on a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates due to start today.

Her 5ft 7in stature would be welcomed by France's fashion designers. 'There has to be a first lady in the Elysée. So why not a beautiful one?' asked Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Karl Lagerfeld said: 'She has class, she is well educated and speaks several languages. I see only quality.'

She is no Cinderella, either. Brought up at the family pile near Turin, Bruni's childhood was spent in a wonderland of crystal chandeliers and architectural elegance. Not that different from the Elysée.

tags: france  sarkozy  celebrity  culture  soap  farce  

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