Sarkozy's father 'announces' Bruni pregnancy

AFTER WEEKS of speculation and studied silence from the Élysée Palace, France received the clearest signal that first lady Carla Bruni was pregnant when a German newspaper quoted her father-in-law saying the rumours were true.

“I’m glad to be having a grandchild,” Pal Sarkozy, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s father, was quoted as saying in Bild. “The two do not want to know the sex in advance, but I’m sure it will be a girl and as beautiful as Carla.”

Ms Bruni (43) has neither confirmed nor denied reports of a pregnancy.

In an interview on TF1 television on Monday, she was caught off-guard when, at the end of an interview about her work on literacy, the presenter Jean-Pierre Pernaut told her: “I know you hate when people talk about your private life, but I just want to congratulate you,” without specifying why.

“Congratulations to you too,” Ms Bruni replied with an embarrassed smile.

Earlier this month, she told Le Parisien: "I would love to talk, woman to woman, about my family life, my personal dreams, about the details of certain things," she said in response to a direct question about the rumours, "but in a way my lips are sealed. Not out of arrogance or out of a taste for secrecy . . . but to protect something and all the work that [my husband] does."

The first lady further fuelled the rumours by not appearing at the Cannes Film Festival last week for the opening night of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, in which she has a small role. Ms Bruni said she would miss the festival "for personal and also for professional reasons".

Guests at a recent dinner with Ms Bruni's mother Marisa Bruni Tedeschi in Italy said she had hinted that a new baby was on the way, according to La Stampanewspaper on Monday.

Asked for its response to Pal Sarkozy’s reported remarks, the Élysée Palace stuck to its standard formula on the rumours. “The Élysée makes no comment on matters of private life.”

Ms Bruni already has one son, Aurélien (9) from a previous relationship with French philosopher Raphaël Enthoven, while Mr Sarkozy (56) has three sons from his two previous marriages.