FRANCE:Finding a role for his wife is the French president's greatest worry, writes Lara Marlowein Paris
"If you liked Jackie Kennedy, you'll love Cécilia," French president Nicolas Sarkozy told guests at his victory party at Fouquet's restaurant on May 6th.
His wife was "reflecting" on what she would do as first lady, he told a television interviewer six weeks later. Privately, he reportedly said that finding an appropriate role for his wife was his biggest worry.
Mrs Sarkozy made headlines in July when she twice flew to Libya to negotiate the release of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor. In an interview published yesterday by regional newspaper L'Est Républicain, she spoke for the first time of her motives. The interview makes her sound more like Princess Diana than Jackie Kennedy, while her repeated vanishing act is reminiscent of Greta Garbo.
"No one will ever stop me trying to relieve the misery of the world, in whatever country it happens," Mrs Sarkozy said. "In my mind, I didn't want to play the role of a 'first lady'. I simply helped to unblock a situation. My whole life, I've helped people who suffer: I'm not going to change today."
Mrs Sarkozy's mother, Teresita "Diane" Albeniz, was the daughter of a Spanish ambassador and the granddaughter of composer Isaac Albeniz. Her father, Aron Ciganer, was a Romanian Jew who fled to Russia and then to Paris, where he set up a fur business. Cécilia was named after her maternal aunt, who died in a car crash and on whose birthday she was born.
Cécilia Ciganer-Albeniz was 27 when she met Nicolas Sarkozy in 1984, on the day of her marriage to variety show host Jacques Martin. As mayor of the suburb of Neuilly, Mr Sarkozy performed the ceremony.
Though already married himself, he fell in love with the bride and courted her assiduously. In 1995, after each had had two children and divorced, Nicolas and Cécilia Sarkozy married.
In 2005-2006, talk of Mrs Sarkozy's departure for New York with a public relations executive, followed by her return to her presidential candidate husband, dominated conversation at Paris dinner parties.
The passionate, rollercoaster relationship of France's first couple continues to fuel the gossip machine. On May 6th, Ms Sarkozy did not vote. "First lady - what a drag," she had famously said two years earlier. Her friends have told journalists that she was paralysed by the certainty of her husband's election, like a parachutist about to jump from an aircraft.
That night, Ms Sarkozy did not go to the campaign headquarters, nor to the victory celebration at the Salle Gaveau. Mr Sarkozy, family and friends pleaded with her on the phone to join them at the dinner she had organised at Fouquet's. She finally showed up, two hours late, without make-up, in a casual jumper and trousers.
Mr Sarkozy now rules France with near absolute authority, but within the couple, "she's the one who's taken power", writes Hervé Algalarrondo in Le Nouvel Observateur magazine.
Those who thought she had left her husband for good in 2005 have been ostracised to the periphery of the presidential entourage. Those who continued to phone her in New York, like presidential spokesman David Martinon and justice minister Rachida Dati (whom Mrs Sarkozy calls "my sister"), are in the inner circle. The couple spend weekends and holidays with her friends, not his.
Mr Sarkozy tries to protect his wife from the press, whom she seems to loathe and fear. When he phoned Le Monde to answer questions about his holiday in New Hampshire, he began by saying: "You can write what you want to about me, but I don't want you to talk about Cécilia."
Likewise, the Élysée announced that Mrs Sarkozy would not appear before the parliamentary commission that is to be established this month to investigate links between French sales of weapons and a nuclear reactor to Libya and the liberation of the Bulgarian hostages. Because she negotiated with Col Muammar Gadafy as her husband's "personal envoy", the Élysée spokesman said, it would violate the "separation of powers" for her to be questioned.
Mrs Sarkozy told L'Est Républicain it was "not [ her] place" to testify before the commission. "However, I want to cast light on my role in this affair, which is why I accepted to talk to you," she told the newspaper.
France's first lady apparently finds Col Gadafy more interesting than US president George Bush. On August 11th, the French president was unable to persuade his capricious wife to attend the lunch to which Laura Bush had invited the Sarkozys at Kennebunkport, Maine.
Mr Sarkozy claimed his wife suffered from a strep throat, but journalists saw her shopping the day before and the day after the luncheon. "Don't force us to call your bosses in Paris so they pull you off the story," Mrs Sarkozy's bodyguard threatened. "If you say you saw her, it's going to create more insinuations."