Feb 13, 2008, 14:14 GMT
Paris - Two weeks after her marriage to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy tried to stop her husband's dramatic slide in opinion polls by apologizing for their happiness.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy (L) and his new wife ex top-model and singer Carla Bruni (R) enjoy a cup of tea at the terrasse of the restaurant La Flotille in Versailles, near Paris, France, 03 February 2008, accompanied by Carla's father Maurizio Remmert and his wife Marcia de Luca (not seen). Bruni and Sarkozy got married in a very intimate ceremony at Elysee Palace on 02 February. EPA/MAXPPP/AURELIE AUDUREAU
'I hope to make Nicolas happy. I think it is the exhibition of this happiness while he is president that is hurting his image. We both gave the impression of an almost normal life, with leisure time, and I regret it,' she said in her first-ever interview as France's First Lady, published Wednesday in the weekly L'Express.
Since he went public with his new relationship in December, just two months after divorcing his second wife, Cecilia, Sarkozy's standing with the French has plunged dramatically.
On Wednesday, yet another poll, this one by Opinionway, showed that nearly six of 10 French adults were dissatisfied with his performance. In November, only four of 10 had held that opinion.
But if she had wanted to avoid controversy in the interview, the 40-year-old Bruni-Sarkozy failed, for one of her comments made waves even before the magazine hit the newsstands.
In the interview she addressed the criminal complaint her husband had filed against the website of the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur for having published an SMS he had allegedly sent to his ex-wife one week before the February 2 wedding, asking her to return.
Bruni-Sarkozy told L'Express that her husband's complaint was justified and then said that 'if these kinds of websites had existed during the (Second World) war, would they have been used to denounce Jews?'
Alerted to the statement, Le Nouvel Observateur's editor-in-chief, Michel Labro went on another news website, Rue89, late Tuesday to denounce it.
'One doesn't play around with this kind of declaration,' Labro said, and called Bruni-Sarkozy's comment 'staggering, rather incredible and pathetic' and 'perfectly idiotic.'
As a result, Bruni-Sarkozy published an apology to accompany her interview on the website of L'Express and on Rue89: 'If I have hurt anyone, I am very sorry,' she said.
All in all, it was not an auspicious beginning to her career as France's First Lady, which Bruni-Sarkozy said she viewed as an adventure.
'I love adventure. And it is a great adventure to accompany a man who governs France,' she said.
She said she was 'overwhelmed' by the media attention the relationship had provoked, and for which even her careers as model and singer had not prepared her.
'This is like another world, into which I came with peace of mind but also with unawareness,' she said.
Bruni-Sarkozy told L'Express she had 'planned nothing, foreseen nothing' regarding her functions. 'I still do not know what I can do as First Lady, but I know how I want to do it: seriously.'
She also said that the album on which she is currently working will be her last while Sarkozy is in office. 'I'm not going to deprive myself of writing and composing, but I will probably not record another album until the end of my husband's term. After that, I'll see.'
Bruni-Sarkozy's first official trip abroad with her husband will take place at the end of March, when the two travel to Britain and are introduced to Queen Elizabeth, a prospect Bruni-Sarkozy called 'exhilarating.'
As for her relationship with the French president, she said, 'I wanted to marry him right away. It seems that with him nothing bad can happen ... Near him all the anxieties I felt since childhood disappear. I was told it happened too fast. That's wrong: Between Nicolas and me it wasn't fast; it was instantaneous.'
Their wedding she described 'as a real wedding, a wedding for us,' and her honeymoon was 'a 20-minute walk in the park around the Versailles chateau ... A beautiful honeymoon nonetheless.'
As for the future, she saw herself at Sarkozy's side forever.
'I come from an Italian culture,' the native of Turin said, 'and I would not want to divorce ... I am therefore the First Lady until the end of my husband's (five-year) term, and his wife until death. I know that life is full of surprises, but that is what I want.'
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