I wonder if France’s relatively new President, Nicolas Sarkozy, isn’t a little bit out of control. He married the model-singer Carla Bruni a very short time after his divorce from his wife Cecilia (click on the links to check out the uncomfortable resemblance). Ms. Bruni’s reputation isn’t exactly, ah, pure: She’s posed for numerous nude photos, and she dated Mick Jagger (forgivable) and Donald Trump (eeewwwww, gross). Still, she’s attractive, talented, and, who knows, maybe a fine conversationalist and companion.
But just when I’m ready to give the guy a break (he wouldn’t be the first man ever to act hastily when on the rebound), the internet site of the reputable, mainstream magazine Nouvel Observateur published an article claiming that eight days before Mr. Sarkozy’s marriage to Ms. Bruni, he sent a text message to his former wife Cecilia reading: “”Si tu reviens, j’annule tout” — if you come back, I’ll cancel everything. If true, it is evidence of remarkable instability.
Being a lover of most things American, Sarkozy reacted in a distinctly American way — he sued, claiming that the report violated a French criminal law against “using falsehoods.” This, it turns out, was his second lawsuit in as many weeks. The week before, he and Ms. Bruni had sued the airline Ryanair over an advertisement that used a picture of he and Ms. Bruni.
“The advertisement showed a cartoon bubble above Bruni, the scion of an Italian industrial dynasty, reading: ‘With Ryanair, my whole family can come to my wedding.'” That lawsuit brought Mr. Sarkozy a whopping one euro, but was more productive from Ms. Bruni, who was awarded 60,000 euros. (As an aside, my attorney readers will may be interested in the speed of the French legal system; the ad was published January 28, the suit was filed on January 30, and Ms. Bruni had the 60,000 euros in her hot little hands by February 5!)
The Nouvel Observateur’s editors note that it was Mr. Sarkozy that first placed his personal life in public view, from the beginning of his Presidency, and see the lawsuit as a “strategy of intimidation.”
It is too bad that Mr. Sarkozy, who campaigned on promises to bring long-needed structural changes to French government and society, is placing those reforms in jeopardy because of his unstable love life. Mr. Sarkozy’s approval ratings have fallen steadily since his election, and his lawsuit is unlikely to reverse that decline.