Deluxe Celebrities

Carla Bruni helps Sarkozy in France

Supermodel-turned-First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy graces the covers of most major French magazines this month, winning praise for her pillbox hat, Dior outfits and poise during an official visit to London.

France is finding it rather likes the Italian-born Bruni, whose high-profile romance with President Nicolas Sarkozy last year earned her media derision as a “man-eater.” Her rebound is even helping her husband stanch the bleeding in his poll ratings after a five-month slide.

“She is more discreet, less talkative, and comes out as being in many ways the opposite of him,” said Jean-Daniel Levy, deputy polling director at CSA, a Paris-based research firm.

In a poll in Le Parisien newspaper on April 6, Bruni, 40, who married Sarkozy on Feb. 2 soon after his divorce from Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz, was deemed “elegant” by 92 percent of those surveyed and “modern” by 89 percent. Sixty percent said she would “help modernize France’s image.”

“This relationship was judged negatively at the start, and now it’s leading to a form of interest,” said Eric Maigret, a professor of sociology at Sciences Po university in Paris.

“Carlamania” hit the French press in earnest after she took the British media by storm during her late-March London visit with Sarkozy. She was photographed demurely curtsying to Queen Elizabeth and riding in a gilded, horse-drawn carriage with Prince Philip, drawing comparisons with Jackie Kennedy and Princess Diana.

The Anti-Cecilia

“She showed she knows how to comply with the demands of etiquette, and in London she participated in all the events required by protocol, quite the opposite of Cecilia, who boycotted most official events,” said Jerome Sainte-Marie, director of political studies at Paris-based pollster BVA.

Sarkozy, 53, needs all the goodwill he can muster. Almost a year after his election, his proposals to revamp France’s economy, including 7 billion euros ($11.1 billion) in spending cuts, have met public resistance as prices rise at the fastest pace in at least 12 years and economic growth cools. His party suffered a drubbing by the opposition Socialists in local elections last month.

Meanwhile, Bruni made it onto the covers of Paris Match, Figaro magazine and L’Express, while Elle and Le Figaro published articles analyzing her style. The satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine now features a “Carla B.” front-page diary in which the fake Carla refers to Sarkozy as her “Hyperactive Honey.”

Power Couple

L’Express, which dedicated its April 3 issue to the new “Power Couple,” said Bruni helps soften Sarkozy’s manner, often criticized as hot-tempered and abrasive. She has made him a better listener, drawing his attention to the precarious conditions in which some people live, the weekly said.

Sarkozy’s approval rating rose by 2 percentage points in the past month, his first gain in popularity since November, a CSA poll for Le Parisien newspaper published on April 4 showed. The president is being helped by a “change in style,” said Maigret, who is the author of a book on Sarkozy entitled “The Hyperpresident.”

CSA’s Levy said the president — whose recent weekend trips with Bruni to Marrakech, Morocco, and South Africa have been considerably lower-profile than their jaunts last year to Egypt and Jordan — is benefiting from a more “sober” attitude.

Bruni’s past — prior to her marriage, she dated Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, among others — certainly continues to surface. On April 10, a nude black-and-white photo of her, taken in 1993, fetched $75,000 at Christie’s International in New York. It will also be a while before Sarkozy loses his “President Bling-Bling” image, with his Ray-Ban aviator glasses and a 45,000-euro Patek Philippe watch that Bruni reportedly gave him.

Still, Bruni is helping temper her husband’s image, said BVA’s Sainte-Marie.

Sarkozy declined in the polls “because he gave the impression of not being focused on his job, but on his emotional life,” Sainte-Marie said. “With Carla at his side, making an effort to fulfill her role, the French have the impression that the state is back at work.”