Blogs abuzz with rumours that both the French president and his wife are having affairs

Splitsville for Sarkozy, Bruni?

Blogs abuzz with rumours that both the French president and his wife are having affairs

End of a fairytale? In December 2007 Sarkozy started dating theu00a0 Italian-born model and French pop singer Carla Bruni. File pic.u00a0
French affair: Chantal Jouanno (top right) and singer Benjamin Biolay (bottom right)

The suggestion that the couple were both committing adultery first emerged on Twitter, the microblogging website. It was followed by a report in the Sunday newspaper le Journal du Dimanche.

The first tweet claimed that Bruni had become romantically involved with Benjamin Biolay, a French musician. It then claimed that the jilted Sarkozy had swiftly found solace in the arms of his 40-year-old ecology minister Chantal Jouanno, also a French karate champion.

French web magazine suchablog.com alleged that Bruni had been a close friend of Biolay for many years and was now unofficially living with him at his flat in Paris.

The rumours were given extra weight after being reported in an blog on the website of Le Journal du Dimanche. The paper wrote, "It's the gossip of the moment that could become the story of the year.

A romance is said to have started a few weeks ago between the First Lady of France and music award winner Benjamin Biolay. The rumour started on Twitter and is now on blogs and websites everywhere."

End of marriage

The Journal du Dimanche added, "It says the presidential marriage is breathing its last breaths. Carla Bruni is in love with Benjamin Biolay and the president has found solace with Jouanno."


	The Ex Factor
	Bruni's string of previous lovers includes Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Donald Trump. She is said to have had a relationship with Jean-Paul Enthoven, before dumping him for his philosopher son Raphael, with whom she has a son, Aurelien. Sarkozy had an affair with Cecilia Ciganer-Albaniz, who eventually became his second wife, while still married to his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, the mother of his two elder sons.

The same story has also been reported by other established news sites including Yahoo News France, Le Post and Agoravoxtv, as well as TV news channel i-Tele.

It is the first time sinceu00a0 Bruni and Sarkozy met at a Paris dinner party in November 2007 that there have been repeated rumours suggesting the marriage is in crisis. For several months after their whirlwind romance and marriage three months later, regular reports predicted the marriage would only last as long as Sarkozy remained president.

Bruni's notorious remark that she is "easily bored by monogamy" is also frequently quoted by the media. But now, for the first time, rumours of trouble in the marriage have reached the mainstream French media.

Sarkozy and Bruni have both reportedly had affairs in past relationships.

Sarkozy and his second wife split during his presidential election campaign in 2007, when she started having an affair with Richard Attais, a US publicist.

Sarkozy's spokesman at the Elysee Palace in Paris said on Tuesday that he had "absolutely no comment" to make on the rumours of extra-marital affairs among France's first couple.

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