’I should smash your face in’

Says French President Nicolas Sarkozy to author who called Bruni a Maneater

'I should smash your face in'

Says French President Nicolas Sarkozy to author who called Bruni a Maneater

With an ex-supermodel for a wife, one might suggest that Nicolas Sarkozy was already punching above his weight now he appears to have taken such sentiments a little too literally.

The French president threatened to 'smash the face' of political editor Franz-Olivier Giesbert after the publication of an unflattering article about Carla Bruni in Le Point magazine.

Sarkozy threatened Giesbert for writing foul comments about his wife Bruni

According to Giesbert's new book, M Le President, there was a 40-minute, heated phone call between Sarkozy and the editor about the article '24 tips to the President ahead of his marriage to Mademoiselle Bruni'.

It included the advice, "Do not introduce your new wife to your sons, Barack Obama or any handsome men."
The biography contains lurid details of the president's outburst in January 2008.

Sarkozy told Giesbert, "This article is filth and I should smash your face in."

Sarkozy said, "You deserve it. I don't know what's holding me back", to which the writer answered, "There is no reason for you and Carla to feel insulted."

The president then told the journalist, "I'm sure you'd blow your top if I wrote that your wife was a whore that everyone had slept with and even wanted to have sex with your children."

However Geisbert refuted claims saying, "Never did our magazine suggest Carla was a whore."

During the call to Giesbert, the president demanded that the magazine make a written apology a request which was denied.

"You'll see what I'm going to do to you," Sarkozy added.

Giesbert said that Sarkozy then put pressure on Francois Pinault, the billionaire who owns Le Point, to fire himu00a0but to no avail.

Tensions were finally eased by Bruni-Sarkozy herself who put in a call to Giesbert to tell him "Nicolas is so in love, you understand. He cannot bear that people write this kind of thing about me".

Giesbert, who is a highly respected political biographer in France, lambasts Sarkozy as a 'child king who is drunk on himself, immature and tyrannical when it comes to his friends'.

Bruni's colourful past
Before marrying Sarkozy in 2008, she had several romantic relations. She once declared she was "easily bored by monogamy" and has had relationships with Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Donald Trump.
She also went out with the well-known philosopher Jean-Paul Enthoven, before leaving him for his son Raphael with whom she has a son.