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Carla Bruni-Sarkozy saves sex tourist minister Frédéric Mitterrand The influence of France’s first lady has halted the sacking of a minister – but for how long Matthew Campbell in Paris The reluctance of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, to sack a gay minister with a past as a “sex tourist” in Thailand will certainly please Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, his wife. She had suggested appointing Frédéric Mitterrand, a friend, as culture minister and the government’s support for him, despite his confession to having paid boys for sex, is partly a sign of Sarkozy’s eagerness not to offend his first lady. “She has...

Cherie Blair has revealed an unexpected upside to leaving Downing Street – her figure doesn’t get compared with that of Carla Bruni. Speaking of French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife, who was famously photographed from behind on the steps of a Spanish palace in April, Mrs Blair said: ‘I am very happy to not have been in Downing Street when Carla Bruni came on an official visit.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was discharged Monday from the hospital where he spent the night after collapsing while jogging. Doctors said his illness was due to heat and overwork and ordered the 54-year-old to rest but prescribed no further medical treatment, his office said. Sarkozy, dressed in a dark suit and tie, walked hand-in-hand with his wife, Carla, from Val de Grace military hospital to his car. He smiled and shook hands with white-clad medical personnel but declined any comment. Medical tests Monday on Sarkozy's heart showed no signs of irregular heartbeat and no long term consequences for the president's...

The way the Associated Press is fawning over Michelle Obama and her supposed sense of fashion, you would almost think they were talking about Carla Bruni who really does dress quite elegantly and oozes glamor. To add to this absurdity, the AP also went out of its way to paint the Russian First Lady as frumpy. Um, advice to AP personnel; don't expect the Russians to go out of their way to help you in your stories in that country after that gratuitous slam on the wife of their president. First let us watch the AP's Catrina Stewart act dazzled...

Carla Bruni to perform for Nelson Mandela Carla Bruni-Sarkozy will break her pledge never to sing in concert while she is First Lady of France when she performs in New York next month to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday. The 41-year old former supermodel will sing a duet with Dave Stewart, the Eurythmics star at New York's Radio City music hall on July 18, in a concert to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday. Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy toured regularly before marrying President Nicolas Sarkozy last year, but stopped public performances after taking becoming First Lady, mainly for security concerns and because the...

Woody Allen would like to use France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy for a film role, the U.S. director told RTL radio on Thursday. "I'm sure she would be wonderful," he said through a translator. "She's got charisma, she's already acted so she's not unknown to an audience. There are a lot of ways I could use her though I don't have a story for her at the moment," he said. "But I'll certainly talk to her about it and I'll ask her if she's interested." Bruni-Sarkozy, one of the world's top models before starting a career as a singer and...

A hugely embarrassing video in which Carla Bruni calls Nicolas Sarkozy my ‘chou chou’ has caused a sensation across France. The intimate moments, captured by authorised magazine journalists, marks the first time that a French President and First Lady have been filmed sharing initimate moments in the Elysee Palace. In what appears to be a well choreographed love-in, 41-year-old Miss Bruni continually strokes her 54-year-old husband’s hand. Among topics of discussion in the interview were the couple’s three dogs, Clara, Dumbledore and Toumi. Earlier this year Mr Sarkozy admitted for the first time that his glamorous wife influences his policies....

France's First Lady said that the Church's teachings had left her feeling "profoundly secular". She departed from her post's traditional religious neutrality to accuse the Pope of "damaging" countries in Africa with his stance on birth control.

Carla Bruni has issued a scathing attack on Pope Benedict XVI saying that she has allowed her Catholic faith to lapse because of his approach to contraception in Africa. France's First Lady said that the Church's teachings had left her feeling "profoundly secular". She departed from her post's traditional religious neutrality to accuse the Pope of "damaging" countries in Africa with his stance on birth control. Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy said: "I was born Catholic, I was baptised, but in my life I feel profoundly secular. I find that the controversy coming from the Pope's message – albeit distorted by the media...

Glamour magazine selected its top 50 most glamorous women of the year for the June issue, based on a panel of judges and online reader polls. Of course, we're barely halfway through the year and a yearlong retrospective seems a bit presumptuous. But it's the winner's circle that leaves us perplexed. Kates flank both ends — Winslet tops the list at No. 1, while supermodel Moss comes in dead last. With Moss's Topshop opening, Met-gala hosting duties, and anticipated forthcoming biography, we're surprised to see her so far down on the list compared to people like Rachel Weisz (No. 44)...

For once, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy had to share the limelight on a state visit to Spain on Monday. She met her match in Princess Letizia, the wife of Spain's Crown Prince Felipe. They made the steps leading to Madrid's Zarzuela Palace resemble a catwalk as Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy and her husband, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, arrived for two days of talks. Both women wore similar fitted dresses; France's first lady in cobalt blue Christian Dior and Princess Letizia in plum by one of her favourite Spanish designers, Felipe Varela. But while Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy opted for modest kitten heels by the London-based...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy met Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero on Monday on a state visit to Madrid that was to include some political sweet-talk after Sarkozy allegedly described Zapatero as “dim”. Accompanied by his wife, Italian former model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the French president first met with King Juan Carlos for a visit full of pageantry. On Tuesday, he’ll join Zapatero for talks on combating both the economic crisis and the Basque separatist group ETA. Sarkozy said on Monday evening that relations between the two countries have never been “as strong as they are now”, and stressed that France...

One is a role model, the other a fashion model. One likes to bare her arms, the other — well, she bares it all. But First Lady Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni, the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, do have this in common — both are grabbing as much attention as their famous husbands while world leaders huddle this week in Europe. The two superstylish first ladies are scheduled to have lunch today, when the paparazzi are likely to burn a new hole in the ozone over Strasbourg, France, the site of their planned tete-a-tete. But as far as...

FRANCE'S first lady broke with protocol today as she held out a frosty hand to welcome Barack Obama. Stunning Carla Bruni was business-like in her greeting — while her hubby treated Michelle Obama to a hug and Continental double kiss. The former model gave pecks on both cheeks to Mrs Obama and other dignatories when the couple arrived in France. But when it came to the dashing US President the beauty kept a noticeable distance.

French cruller Carla Bruni was one sweet sight everywhere she went in Manhattan yesterday. The sexy model-turned-singer first performed her duties as France's first lady by attending meetings at the United Nations with her president hubby, Nicolas Sarkozy. She then left the world leaders to catch up on current events, and enjoyed entertaining reading with the New York Post tucked under her arm. After returning to her Upper East Side hotel for a quick rest and outfit change out of a demure, pinstriped skirt suit, she reappeared in the evening looking ready to turn plenty of heads. One of the...

He has been nicknamed 'President Bling Bling', but Nicolas Sarkozy left his usual flashy style at home yesterday as he worked up a sweat on the beach. After a busy year the French president could have been forgiven for taking the rare chance to relax. But instead he has spent the last few days unwinding with an energetic timetable of cycling, swimming and jogging in the south of France. Today he again shunned idly sunbathing to join tourists on the sand at Cavalaire-sur-Mer. Bikini-clad sunbathers watched with interest as the 53-year-old and his companions jogged at a fast pace along...

French first Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has admitted being "instinctively Left-wing" and having a problem with "conservatives" despite her husband's Right wing politics, in a frank newspaper interview. The Italian supermodel turned singer expressed relief that her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, had toned down his "bling-bling" love of chunky watches and Ray-Ban sunglasses in favour of her "more austere tastes." She also admitted organising dinners with artists to "cultivate" her husband, a TV-addict whose musical tastes stop at Elvis Presley and his French equivalent, Johnny Hallyday. "Perhaps I can help him to enable him to better communicate on the things that...

The French are different from you and me. Yes, they have Sarkozy. And they have Carla. And they have “the Carla effect,” as it’s known in Paris. If an American first lady, or would-be first lady, described herself as a “tamer of men” and had a “man-eating” past filled with naked pictures, Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, sultry prone CD covers, breaking up marriages, bragging that she believes in polygamy and polyandry rather than monogamy, and having a son with a married philosopher whose father she had had an affair with, it would take more than an appearance on “The...

At the Parisian dinner party where their heady, whirlwind courtship commenced at breakneck speed, Nicolas Sarkozy sat transfixed, listening to Carla Bruni strumming away on her guitar. The 53-year-old French President, dressed in a sober dark business suit and tie, tapped his fingers enthusiastically on the table and shouted "bravo" at the end of every one of the Italian supermodel-turned-singer's soulful songs. He had already bluntly told the glamorous society wife who was hosting the intimate soiree: "I don't want to be impolite, but I have to turn my back on you", before focusing all his attention on long-limbed, blue-eyed...

He is a lieutenant so loyal that President Nicolas Sarkozy personally rewarded him with the party’s nomination for mayor of the affluent Paris suburb that Mr. Sarkozy himself long governed. But now, David Martinon, the president’s spokesman, has abruptly withdrawn from the race. And it was the president’s own son Jean who forced him out. “The conditions are no longer in place for me to lead the municipal campaign in Neuilly,” Mr. Martinon told reporters on Monday. “I am pulling out.” Adding to the intrigue, Mr. Martinon said that he submitted his resignation as spokesman — but that Mr. Sarkozy...

French newspapers on Monday splashed photos of President Nicolas Sarkozy with singer and former supermodel Carla Bruni, fuelling speculation of romance just two months after the president's divorce. Sarkozy, 53, and Bruni, 39, were snapped together at the Disneyland theme park near Paris on Saturday. They made little apparent attempt to hide the fact that they were there together, though none of the photos showed them any closer than shoulder-to-shoulder. The Elysee Palace would not comment to AFP on the pictures. But L'Express magazine editor Christophe Barbier told French television that Bruni -- whose past boyfriends include rock stars Mick...