I wish them long life, good health and happiness.
Posted on 01/06/2008 2:35:22 PM PST by Cincinna
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is to marry his new girlfriend, the former model turned singer Carla Bruni, a French newspaper reported Sunday, claiming a wedding was "imminent".
Citing several anonymous sources, the Journal du Dimanche said the couple, currently on a private visit to Jordan at the invitation of King Abdullah II, are believed to have set a wedding date for either February 8 or 9.
Presidential spokesman David Martinon declined to comment on the front-page story.
Sarkozy, 52, and Bruni, 39, were photographed on Saturday touring the rose-red city of Petra in southern Jordan, the president carrying Bruni's young son Aurelien on his shoulders.
During a Christmas trip to Egypt, the recently-divorced president reportedly gave Bruni an engagement ring -- a pink diamond heart -- while Bruni gave him a luxury Swiss watch in grey steel.
Sarkozy and Bruni -- heiress to a tyre fortune whose former boyfriends include rock stars Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton -- have been trailed by a swarm of paparazzi since their romance was first publicised in mid-December.
Bruni may accompany Sarkozy on an official trip to India late this month, according to local media, which said the government of the morally conservative country was struggling to find the right protocol to greet her.
The French president and his second wife Cecilia announced their divorce in October after 11 years of a tumultuous marriage. Sarkozy has a 10-year-old son with Cecilia, as well two grown sons from a previous marriage.
Bruni's mother Marisa Tedeschi Bruni was quoted in the Italian press last month saying the president had asked for her daughter's hand in marriage.
Sarkozy, who has yet to comment publicly on his new relationship, is to answer questions on the subject at a New Year's press conference Tuesday, as a poll showed his confidence rating slipping seven points -- a drop blamed in part on voter concerns about his relationship.
According to a CSA poll in Le Parisien, 48 percent of voters say they trust the president to tackle France's problems, compared to 55 percent last month. Forty-five percent said they did not trust him, compared to 38 a month before.
CSA director Stephane Rozes said the slip chiefly reflected fears about the economy, and falling disposable incomes, but probably also unease among older voters -- he fell 15 percent among the over-60s -- about his highly-publicised romance.
What can one say?
The French are very different from you and me.
What the article doesn’t mention is that the Aurelian, the “darling little boy” of Carla Bruni, is the product of an affair that Carla had with the young son of her husband at the time.
Thus, Carla is at the the same time Mother and Grandmother of the child.
Not a good example to set, to say the very least!
ahhh...to be a 52 year old frenchman in love.
BFD.
Wow. I have her album. A very beautiful, wispy voice. Very good for a moment late at night or a rainy day. Not too hard on the eyes, either.
Not a wicked step-mother... at least from the boy’s point of view...
let them eat cake
That was pretty quick. I haven’t followed closely, but I hope this is not going to adversely effect Sarko getting the job he needs to do done.
I wish them long life, good health and happiness.
Now THAT would be something worth giving up the Presidency for... ;-D
Well, that certainly didn’t take long....
may have been going on longer than we know
Yeah, looks like they might have met before the divorce.
Ah, if only I were a gorgeous, leggy Italo-French model; I could have landed myself a cute French President, too.
The sob stole my chick!
Only question that crosses my mind, given dating history of his wife-to-be, is if she will stay with him once he leaves office.
I do find the comments on this to be illustrative of subjective bias - put this exact same divorce/dating history, including the new wife, in an american DNC president, and it would be a rather different tone here.
Sounds like a Rudy & Bubba escapade.
Great googly moogly...
Yes, but with a whole lot better looking woman.
I want to be President of France!
Yes, the hypocrisy of this thread is amusing.
In politics and passion, Sarkozy enjoys the last laugh
Sorry Frank, Valentin, Mads and others who think that there's too much Nicolas Sarkozy here. I can't resist posting this picture and citing some new insights into France's hyper-president.
The cover photo leads yet another Paris Match spread on Sarko's new love-life. The president is strolling in Egypt with his hand around Carla Bruni's midriff, above a glimpse of black underwear. "The lovers of the Nile. Kisses, laughs, tender gestures, the photo-album of their vacation," says the headline. The copy inside is grovelling gush about the super-statesman taking a well-deserved break.
Judging by the sales of Match and other media which are playing up the romance, the French have still not had enough of the Sarko show. But his exhibitionism is getting on the nerves of the opposition. François Hollande, the Socialist leader, has just defined the style with his usual wit. "Sarzkozyism is above all narcissism," said Hollande.
Thanks to a new book, we know that Sarkozy sees his highly orchestrated Egypian idyll as "telling France a story." The line comes from one of the fascinating scenes in Des Hommes d'Etat, an insider's account of Sarkozy's ruthless quest for power in the closing years of Jacques Chirac's administration.
Bruno Le Maire, the author, was chief of staff to Dominique de Villepin, the protegé whom Chirac appointed Prime Minister in 2005 in a last-ditch attempt to block Sarko's path to the Elysée Palace. Tom Cruise -- Villepin's nickname for his then Interior Minister -- believed that France did not care about a successful record. It wanted narrative. "You have to tell the French a story," Sarko lectured the newly-appointed Villepin. "What story are you going to tell them in July, in August, next year ?".
The extracts published in today's L'Express and other papers, show how obsessed Sarko was with winning power and how much Chirac and Villepin loathed him and were out to stop him. Sarkozy emerges as the figure we recognise, a little boy who wants to avenge rejection by the popular gang at school. "I am alone. I made myself alone. I will remain alone in this battle," Sarko tells Villepin in a tense meeting in late 2006. "All the others are out. Even the president. He thinks he knows better than me. But I know better and he won't get me."
Sarkozy is enjoying the last laugh, with both Chirac and Villepin facing criminal charges over episodes in their distant and recent past. The President is showing no mercy towards his former bosses, much to the chagrin of the Chirac camp. I have bumped into two of Chirac's inner circle over the holiday period. Both told me how much the old president, now 75, has aged in recent months and how wounded he was by Sarko's recent comment that the prosecutors should have got to him sooner over abuses when he was Mayor of Paris and Gaullist chief. Those were the years -- in the 1980s and early 90s - when Chirac was helping young Sarko up the ladder.
The political season has opened again today, with ministers quaking over Sarkozy's first review of their individual performances after eight months in office. He is expected to keep François Fillon as his Prime Minister but cull the under-achievers from his cabinet within weeks.
It fell to Fillon today to give the first exegesis of Sarko's latest narrative for the people: French renaissance through "the politics of civilisation". Sarko borrowed this rather nebulous doctrine from Edgar Morin, a leftish sociologist, and announced it on New Year's eve. Fillon explained that it was all about "putting the values of the spirit and culture at the heart of an era that may be feared as disembodied, utilitarian and selfish." Pictures from the Nile are easier to grasp.
Posted by Charles Bremner on January 03, 2008 at 04:59 PM in France
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yitbos
Sarkozy got a hottie. Good for him.
Sarkozy got a hottie ? :(
He could do better
Yes, and I give him five years tops before he's going through another divorce.
oH LAWD.
“Thus, Carla is at the the same time Mother and Grandmother of the child.”
W
T
F
Carla Bruni conceived this child while married to the father of her lover, the boy’s biological father.
Thus she is both the mother and (step) grandmother of the boy.
that is one well built woman.
Wow. That is...ahhh...no comment.
Yup
She a piece of ... work
and no mistaking
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