The French president and his wife, Carla Bruni, who married after a whirlwind three-month courtship in 2008, have been the subject of infidelity rumors that first began on Twitter two weeks ago.
Julien Hekimian, WireImage
Rumors have been swirling on blogs and Web sites that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni, have both been having affairs. When a reporter asked about it, Sarkozy called the question "idiotic."
Most mainstream newspapers in France, where privacy traditions and libel laws are much tougher than in the U.S., have shied away from the reports, but blogs and news Web sites have run with the story, including the Web site of the Sunday newspaper Le Journal de Dimanche, Le Post and Yahoo News France. (The story on the Le Journal de Dimanche site, one of the first to publish the rumor, was later deleted in what some critics saw as a pre-emptive dodge of presidential wrath.)
According to the various Web sites, Sarkozy has been reportedly "finding comfort" in the arms of Chantal Jouanno, a married right-wing politician in his cabinet and a former French national karate champion.
Bruni, for her part, is supposedly in love with French singer Benjamin Biolay, who was recently named best male singer and won the album of the year award at the French version of the Grammys.
Bruni was the first to address the rumors during a recent interview with Britain's Sky News that was released this week.
"He would never have affairs," Bruni said, adding forcefully, "Have you ever seen a picture of him having an affair? Ah, so."
Sarkozy got his chance to respond to the rumors at a press conference today following a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London. Bruni did not accompany him on the trip, which merely fueled the rumors.
A French journalist asked him about the report and was called an "idiot."
When a British reporter followed up by asking Sarkozy to at least deny the affair, Sarkozy minced no words.
"You must know very little about what the president of the Republic actually has to do all day long," he said, according to the London Telegraph. "I certainly don't have time to deal with these ridiculous rumors, not even half a fraction of a second. I don't even know why you use your speaking time to put such an idiotic question."
"I love Britain," Sarkozy said later Friday. "Don't make me bite back those words."
Sarkozy and his wife make easy targets for rumors of infidelity. Prior to her marriage to him, Bruni once famously said that "she's easily bored by monogamy."
Bruni has long had the reputation of a femme fatale in France. Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Donald Trump are among her former lovers. She left Jean-Paul Enthoven for his philosopher son Raphael, who was married at the time. Raphael Enthoven's then wife, novelist Justine Lévy, wrote a thinly veiled novel based on Bruni's involvement with her husband, called "Nothing Serious."
Sarkozy reportedly began a relationship with his second wife, Cecilia Ciganer-Albaniz, while still married to his first. She, in turn, left him for a U.S. publicist during his 2007 presidential campaign.
