President Nicolas Sarkozy has given the strongest sign yet that he intends to marry the former supermodel Carla Bruni.
After weekend reports that a wedding is planned for early February, Mr Sarkozy joked that it was not up to Sunday papers to set the date. However, "there is a strong chance that you will learn about it after it's already done," he told a press conference at the Elysée palace.
When asked whether the couple had already tied the knot, the president lifted his ringless right hand and smiled. Mr Sarkozy, 52, said that his relationship with Miss Bruni, 40, an Italian-born French former model turned pop singer, was "serious" and that Miss Bruni felt the same way.
The couple's romance has been making headlines in France and around the world since they first began dating two months ago. They have since been photographed together in locations from Disneyland Paris to the pyramids in Egypt - often arm in arm.
Dubbed a "man eater" by the French press, Miss Bruni has been previously linked to Mick Jagger, Donald Trump and Eric Clapton, as well as former French Socialist prime minister, Laurent Fabius.
The heiress to a tyre fortune recently remarked that she found monogomy "desperately boring" and preferred polyandry (having more than one husband).
advertisementMr Sarkozy divorced his former wife Cecilia in October, after being married for 11 years. Several opinion polls show the president has lost lost popularity since the New Year, with many French unhappy about his economic policies and the over-exposure of his private life.
Accustomed to presidents' discretion about their often complicated love-lives, many French people - particularly among the older generation - see Mr Sarkozy's public romance with Miss Bruni as glitzy, impulsive and a distraction from his job.
But Mr Sarkozy, dubbed the "Bling-Bling president" by the Left-wing French press, said he had decided to go public about it "to break with a deplorable tradition of hypocrisy and lies." This was a clear allusion to the late president François Mitterrand, who concealed his illegitimate daughter for years despite wide knowledge of her existence among Parisian journalists.
Without mentioning Mr Mitterrand's name, Mr Sarkozy referred to a trip one of his predecessors made to Egypt "in a presidential plane" with a second family.
"Everyone knew about it and nobody talked about it," Mr Sarkozy said.
"Carla and I have decided not to lie." "It's very satisying for me: France is changing," he added.
Leading figures in the fashion world hailed Miss Bruni as a woman whose sense of style might provide a little inspiration for other politicians' spouses.
"Carla is great: chic, modern, speaks many languages, perfectly educated, beautiful. I see only quality", said the designer Karl Lagerfeld.
The French designer Jean Paul Gaultier said: "I loved the Chiracs, but politics are like fashion: it's about change and there has to be a first lady in a place like the Elysee palace. Why not such a beautiful one?"
Some have accused President Sarkozy of using his private life to mask his failure to improve the French economy. He said he was astonished and hurt at press suggestions that he had timed his divorce in October to overshadow a nationwide strike over pensions.
Yesterday's news conference - the first of its kind since his election in May - was a chance for Mr Sarkozy to rekindle French belief in his reforms. One poll last weekend showed his popularity rating had fallen to around 48 per cent - a drop of seven points in a month.
Pledging to stick to his economic programme, he indicated he wants to dismantle fully the 35-hour week, but had little room for manouevre in boosting French purchasing power - the country's top concern.
"Concerning purchasing power, what do you expect from me?" he said. "That I empty coffers that are already empty?".
He announced his intention to implement a quota system for would-be economic migrants, saying it was the "only solution." He added that Italy and Spain would work with France to conduct collective expulsions of illegal immigrants.
An international news channel called France Monde, similar to BBC World, would be launched this year, he declared. The channel would be French-only, as "with taxpayers' money, I am not prepared to broadcast a channel that does not speak French," he said.
