EU-DIGEST

France - Bruni wants a child with Nicolas Sarkozy

Just days after the release of her new music album in which she sings of her love for Nicolas Sarkozy, Carla Bruni [Images] has expressed her desire of having a baby with the flamboyant French president. "I'd love to have children with Nicolas. I hope to, if I am young enough. It would be a dream," Bruni, who already has a child from her first marriage, said in an interview to Vanity Fair magazine at Elysee Palace in Paris. However, the 40-year-old former Italian supermodel-turned-singer has ruled out fertility programs. "If it comes, I'd be the happiest person in the world, but if it doesn't come, I'm not going to tempt the Devil. If life doesn't give me another child, well, it has given me so much already," Bruni said.

Labels: Bruni, EU, France, Sarkozy

Bruni and Sarkozy disarm the British in cross-Channel charm offensive - Mark Rice-Oxly

They have perhaps the longest international rivalry in the history of the nation state, a mutual disdain rooted in generations of medieval war, decades of imperialistic antagonism and a cultural dissonance that persists to this day. But are Britain and France about to kiss and make up?"Sarkozy wants to close the chapter of Gaullism," MacShane adds. "Mitterand and [former French President Jacques] Chirac always kept the British at a distance." Newspapers returned Mr. Sarkozy's compliments with interest. Tabloids swooned at his supermodel wife, Carla Bruni Sarkozy, who cut a classy, demure figure at a royal banquet on Wednesday night, inviting comparison, albeit perhaps hyperbolic, to Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana. At the heart of his appeal was a call for Britain to become more closely engaged with the EU. Britain may be a more European country these days, but political discourse is still dominated by Euroskeptics unconvinced by the case for closer affinity with the 27-nation bloc. "The political class in France and Germany assumes that the other is their first partner in Europe," he says. "The political class in Westminster certainly doesn't assume that. It assumes that its first partner is the US, and still has quite a lot of reservations about Europe." Brits would, he adds, be misguided if they thought Sarkozy's offer was about replacing France's long-term partner Germany with a new paramour. "It would be very foolish to understand that it's us instead of Germany," he says, "it's us as well as Germany. A ménage à trois."

Labels: Britain, Bruni, EU, France, Sarkozy

France begins to grow weary with the Sarkozy soap opera - Alex Duval Smith

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 honor, 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.

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.

Labels: Bruni, EU, France, Politics, Sarkozy

France - Sarkozy to marry girlfriend ex-model Bruni in February

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, is believed to have set a wedding date for either February 8 or 9.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.

Labels: Bruni, EU, France, Sarkozy

Sarkozy and Carla Bruni

There's a donor conference on aid to Palestine on in Paris today, with Mahmoud Abbas, Tzipi Livni, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice and others in town. Security is tight; the matter is pressing. But what are people really talking about in the French capital this morning? Only one subject: the revelation, according to L'Express magazine, that Nicolas Sarkozy's new girlfriend is Carla Bruni, a Franco-Italian model and singer.What really caught my eye about this story, however, is not that the president, who announced his divorce from Cecilia in October, has found time in his head-spinning diary for romance. It is that the couple were apparently spotted by photograhpers this weekend, not at the Opera, nor the latest exhibition at the Grand Palais, but at…Disneyland. Given Sarkozy's Americaphilia, and his manifest weakness for light entertainment in all its early-Saturday-evening-TV-variety-show forms, this should perhaps not come as a surprise. Sarkozy is clever and sharp and brilliant in many ways but he is not an intellectual, and has no time for the coffee-drinking left-bank crowd. Note EU-Digest: Certainly a new page for France has been set by Mr. Sarkozy, only the future will tell if its good or bad?

Labels: Bruni, EU, France, Sarkozy

Sarkozy-Bruni photos spark new romance speculation.

New pictures of President Nicolas Sarkozy with pop singer and former top model Carla Bruni -- who has counted Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton among her ex-boyfriends -- have sparked renewed speculation about the French president's love life. Sarkozy only announced his divorce from his second wife, Cecilia, on October 19 but on Saturday he went to the Disneyland Paris theme park with Bruni, and three French magazines will publish photos this week,according to lexpress.fr, the website of L'Express magazine.Bruni, who will be 40 on Sunday, was born in Italy and was the heiress of a tyre manufacturing fortune. She was a fashion model before turning to pop music and has one daughter. Sarkozy, 53, has two sons from his first marriage and one son from his marriage to Cecilia Sarkozy.

Labels: Bruni, EU, France, Sarkozy