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Sarkozy, wife to part ways?

— Photo: AFP

GROWING DISTANCE?: French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia Sarkozy in this June file photo.

Paris: Speculation is rife that Nicolas Sarkozy could become the first French President to get divorced while in office. Quoting sources “close to the Elysee” presidential palace as well as sources in Switzerland, a newspaper has announced the couple would be officially separating shortly.

But the presidential spokesman, David Martinon, refused to confirm or deny the rumours saying, he “refused to comment on press statements on such matters”.

That Mr Sarkozy has a troubled marriage has been a known fact for several years. The French First Lady has not been seen by his side since August 14 when they returned from a family vacation in the U.S.

“Things should move pretty quickly, with divorce papers filed rapidly at the courts in Nanterre [a suburb of Paris],” the Est Republicain newspaper, which broke the story, said. Cecilia Sarkozy (49), a former fashion model, has been barely seen at her husband’s side since he took office in May, prompting speculation that their relationship, which went through a period of separation in 2005, is once again on the rocks.

Last week, she failed to accompany Mr. Sarkozy on a visit to Bulgaria, where she was to have received an award for helping secure the release of nurses held in Libya. Ms. Sarkozy has been in Geneva and London in recent weeks.

Le Nouvel Observateur magazine reported that at a recent France-Georgia rugby match, Mr. Sarkozy (52), confided to his Georgian counterpart, Mikhail Saakashvili, that he might soon be single. It also quoted Mr. Sarkozy as saying: “Thankfully, there is the rugby. With that you can forget all the rest.”

Ms Sarkozy has not appeared in public since the funeral in September of her first husband, television presenter Jacques Martin. Her only official overseas visit with her husband was in June, when she cut short her stay at the G8 meeting in Germany. On holiday in the United States in August, she flunked a picnic lunch with President George W. Bush.

In April, rumours of a separation were rampant after she was conspicuously absent from Mr. Sarkozy’s election campaign. She was then photographed voting in round one of the election, but in the second round, two weeks later, she failed to cast a vote. Ms Sarkozy has never moved into the Elysee Palace, preferring the couple’s apartment in Neuilly or La Lanterne, an official residence in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles. Before the election, she said she could not see herself as a conventional First Lady. “It bores me ... I don’t fit the mould,” she said.

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