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Sarkozy, wife separate

PHOTO: AFP

A combo of two recent portraits of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia.

Paris: The French president’s office on Thursday put to rest persistent rumours about an impending presidential separation by confirming that Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecelia had divorced.

“Cecilia and Nicolas Sarkozy announce their separation by mutual consent. They will make no comment,” a terse first communique said. Two hours later a second statement said they have “divorced by mutual consent.”

The Elysee Palace released the statement to confirm the split as weeks of speculation reached fever pitch and newspapers for the first time devoted extensive front-page reports to the collapse of the marriage.

As the news broke, Mr. Sarkozy left for an E.U. summit in Lisbon. Ms. Cecilia has been spotted in the capital in recent days, driving her Mini Cooper car and shopping ahead of the wedding of her 20-year-old daughter Jeanne-Marie. The Sarkozys have had a famously see-saw relationship, splitting up for several months in 2005 when Ms. Cecilia left to live with an advertising executive.

Mr. Sarkozy himself contracted a much publicised relationship with a female journalist around the same time. But the couple came back together, some say in order to see his presidential bid to fruition.

Ms. Cecilia Sarkozy, a 49 year-old former model, has barely been seen at the President’s side since he took office in May.

On Monday it was announced that she will not accompany him on a state visit to Morocco next week.

The pair married in 1996 and have a 10 year-old son, Louis, as well as two grown-up children each from previous marriages.

Before the May election Ms. Cecilia Sarkozy made clear she did not see herself as a conventional first lady, telling an interviewer that the idea “bores me”.

“She didn’t want to participate in presidential life or in public life. It was inevitable,” said Partrick Balkany, a member of Mr. Sarkozy’s UMP party who with his wife Isabelle is a close friend of the couple. His wife, Isabelle Balkany a close friend of Ms. Cecilia said: “The President is deeply affected, but I honestly think it will have no impact on his role as head of state.” The couple first met in 1984 when Mr. Sarkozy — then Mayor of the Paris suburb of Neuilly — officiated at her wedding to Martin. Both later divorced and 12 years later they were married. Each had two children from their first marriages and their son Louis was born in 1997.

A former model who worked as a parliamentary assistant, Ms. Cecilia made no secret of her impatience with the conventional idea of being the President’s wife.

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