Nicolas Sarkozy & Carla Bruni
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has asked Italian former supermodel Carla Bruni to marry him, La Stampa newspaper said Tuesday quoting Bruni's mother.
"I am very happy for my daughter, it makes me very happy to see her so radiant and in love," Marisa Tedeschi Bruni was quoted as saying by the Italian daily.
La Stampa said it had confirmed with other sources that Sarkozy had proposed to the 39-year-old former fashion model who is now a pop singer in France. The French press has said Sarkozy is dating Bruni and the two were photographed together at the Paris Disneyland on Saturday.
Another unnamed friend quoted Bruni as saying: "It is all true, we have been together for one month," La Stampa said in its double page report on the relationship.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has begun a relationship with Carla Bruni, a former model, two months after divorcing his wife, Cécilia.
The president, 52, and Miss Bruni, 39, who is Italian, appeared happy to be photographed together with their respective children during a trip to Disneyland Paris at the weekend.
Reportedly a former lover of - among others - Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Donald Trump and an "eminent" French socialist, Miss Bruni has a "legendary reputation as a man-eater", according to Le Parisien.
News of the relationship was first posted on the website of the magazine l'Express, whose editor, Christophe Barbier, is a friend of the couple.
"She told me that the publicity surrounding this story did not bother her," he said. "From now on, it would become an affair, a public love story."
The couple may appear together on Thursday when Mr Sarkozy flies to Rome to meet the Pope, Barbier added. A spokesman for the Elysée Palace declined to comment.
However, Miss Bruni and Mr Sarkozy do not see eye to eye on every level: she is four inches taller than the 5ft 5in president, has spoken out against his "selective immigration" policies and voted for his Socialist rival Ségolene Royal in this year's presidential election. Some commentators quipped that this might be the most spectacular sign to date of his commitment to bi-partisan politics.
The pair reportedly met at a dinner held by advertising boss Jacques Séguéla last month in the gardens of the château de Versailles.
The news ends weeks of feverish speculation over Mr Sarkozy's private life, after rumours that he had been dating a Bosnian journalist and more recently, Laurence Ferrari, a French TV presenter. Miss Ferrari has sued two newspapers over the allegations.
Miss Bruni, whose full name is Carla Bruni Tedeschi, comes from a wealthy family. Her parents fled to France from Italy in 1973 when she was five to escape kidnapping threats from the Red Brigade, a Left-wing terrorist group.
An international model in the 1990s, she launched a successful singing career in 2002. Her first album, Quelqu'un m'a dit (Someone told me), with husky vocals on her libertarian lifestyle, sold two million copies.
Her second, No Promises, where she sings poems in English by W B Yeats, Dorothy Parker and Emily Dickinson was less successful.
She has a six-year-old son, Aurélien, whose father, Raphaël Enthoven, is a philosopher.
Mr Sarkozy's biographer, Catherine Nay, pointed out that with her long legs, high cheekbones and cat-like eyes, Miss Bruni bears a striking resemblance to Mr Sarkozy's former wife. "Men are often drawn to the same type of butterfly," she said.
Like Mrs Sarkozy, she has Latin roots, no French blood, and is from a family of musicians (her father was an opera composer and her mother was a concert pianist).
The apparent stage-managing of the Disney outing - coinciding with a poll putting Mr Sarkozy at his lowest popularity rating since his May election.
In an article entitled "Disney fairytale", Liberation newspaper suggested that "this paparazzified idyll" would do much to "re-gild the president's image after being abandoned to his ambitions by his (ex-) wife," who divorced him two months ago today.
The liaison will come as no surprise to Mr Sarkozy's mother, who told Point de Vue this month that her son would have no trouble finding a new woman after his divorce.
Andrée Sarkozy, 82, said the divorced president could have his pick of women, but that he should avoid marrying any of them. "I have had enough of brides," she said.
There have been reports that Cécilia Sarkozy is moving to London and would enrol their 10-year-old son, Louis, into the Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle school in South Kensington. The school denied the reports.
Madonna sends her daughter, Lourdes, to the school, whose alumni includes the actresses Zoe Wanamaker and Joely Richardson.
"I am very happy for my daughter, it makes me very happy to see her so radiant and in love," Marisa Tedeschi Bruni was quoted as saying by the Italian daily.
La Stampa said it had confirmed with other sources that Sarkozy had proposed to the 39-year-old former fashion model who is now a pop singer in France. The French press has said Sarkozy is dating Bruni and the two were photographed together at the Paris Disneyland on Saturday.
Another unnamed friend quoted Bruni as saying: "It is all true, we have been together for one month," La Stampa said in its double page report on the relationship.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has begun a relationship with Carla Bruni, a former model, two months after divorcing his wife, Cécilia.
The president, 52, and Miss Bruni, 39, who is Italian, appeared happy to be photographed together with their respective children during a trip to Disneyland Paris at the weekend.
Reportedly a former lover of - among others - Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Donald Trump and an "eminent" French socialist, Miss Bruni has a "legendary reputation as a man-eater", according to Le Parisien.
News of the relationship was first posted on the website of the magazine l'Express, whose editor, Christophe Barbier, is a friend of the couple.
"She told me that the publicity surrounding this story did not bother her," he said. "From now on, it would become an affair, a public love story."
The couple may appear together on Thursday when Mr Sarkozy flies to Rome to meet the Pope, Barbier added. A spokesman for the Elysée Palace declined to comment.
However, Miss Bruni and Mr Sarkozy do not see eye to eye on every level: she is four inches taller than the 5ft 5in president, has spoken out against his "selective immigration" policies and voted for his Socialist rival Ségolene Royal in this year's presidential election. Some commentators quipped that this might be the most spectacular sign to date of his commitment to bi-partisan politics.
The pair reportedly met at a dinner held by advertising boss Jacques Séguéla last month in the gardens of the château de Versailles.
The news ends weeks of feverish speculation over Mr Sarkozy's private life, after rumours that he had been dating a Bosnian journalist and more recently, Laurence Ferrari, a French TV presenter. Miss Ferrari has sued two newspapers over the allegations.
Miss Bruni, whose full name is Carla Bruni Tedeschi, comes from a wealthy family. Her parents fled to France from Italy in 1973 when she was five to escape kidnapping threats from the Red Brigade, a Left-wing terrorist group.
An international model in the 1990s, she launched a successful singing career in 2002. Her first album, Quelqu'un m'a dit (Someone told me), with husky vocals on her libertarian lifestyle, sold two million copies.
Her second, No Promises, where she sings poems in English by W B Yeats, Dorothy Parker and Emily Dickinson was less successful.
She has a six-year-old son, Aurélien, whose father, Raphaël Enthoven, is a philosopher.
Mr Sarkozy's biographer, Catherine Nay, pointed out that with her long legs, high cheekbones and cat-like eyes, Miss Bruni bears a striking resemblance to Mr Sarkozy's former wife. "Men are often drawn to the same type of butterfly," she said.
Like Mrs Sarkozy, she has Latin roots, no French blood, and is from a family of musicians (her father was an opera composer and her mother was a concert pianist).
The apparent stage-managing of the Disney outing - coinciding with a poll putting Mr Sarkozy at his lowest popularity rating since his May election.
In an article entitled "Disney fairytale", Liberation newspaper suggested that "this paparazzified idyll" would do much to "re-gild the president's image after being abandoned to his ambitions by his (ex-) wife," who divorced him two months ago today.
The liaison will come as no surprise to Mr Sarkozy's mother, who told Point de Vue this month that her son would have no trouble finding a new woman after his divorce.
Andrée Sarkozy, 82, said the divorced president could have his pick of women, but that he should avoid marrying any of them. "I have had enough of brides," she said.
There have been reports that Cécilia Sarkozy is moving to London and would enrol their 10-year-old son, Louis, into the Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle school in South Kensington. The school denied the reports.
Madonna sends her daughter, Lourdes, to the school, whose alumni includes the actresses Zoe Wanamaker and Joely Richardson.
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