FRANCE:French president Nicolas Sarkozy was photographed at the weekend with former supermodel turned singer Carla Bruni, fuelling rumours of romance just two months after his divorce from his second wife.
Pictures of Sarkozy and Bruni, a dark-haired, blue-eyed Italian, visiting Disneyland Paris were splashed over the French newspapers yesterday and the couple are also expected to make the front pages of several glossy magazines this week.
Sarkozy's office declined to comment on the reports, which suggested he had wasted no time in getting to know Bruni after meeting her last month.
The right-leaning Le Figaronewspaper, which is regarded as close to the 52-year-old Sarkozy, ran a front-page headline "Carla Bruni, the president's girlfriend", above a photo of the smiling 38-year-old in a fur coat.
Le Parisiennewspaper carried a front-page picture of the pair together at Disneyland Paris surrounded by three unidentified children with the caption "The head of state and his girlfriend Carla".
Sarkozy and his second wife Cecilia split in October after 11 years of marriage.
It was the first time in modern French history that a serving president had divorced.
Bruni has been romantically linked in the past with singer Mick Jagger, guitarist Eric Clapton and business tycoon Donald Trump, as well as actor Kevin Costner.
She was born in Italy but lives in France, and was among celebrities at a concert in October to oppose a controversial immigration law proposed by Sarkozy, which introduces optional DNA tests to verify family links.
The left-leaning Libérationnewspaper described Sarkozy's divorce from Cecilia as the first instalment in the Sarkozy soap opera with Bruni the "heroine of 'season 2'."