Carla Bruni Sarkozy says clear ‘no’ to any part in local politics

DPA/Paris

France’s first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has ruled out a political career, saying that while she enjoys representing France abroad she does not have the stomach for politics. "Getting into politics: it’s no and always will be no,” the 43-year-old singer and former model told Le Parisien newspaper in an interview yesterday.

The Italian-born daughter of a wealthy family of Turin industrialists said she "admired people who do it (politics), but it’s like boxing.” Sometimes it was "violent,” she said, declaring: "I don’t have the bones, I don’t have the teeth.”

The third wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy also declared that, despite her image of a leftwing libertine, she had never voted for a left-wing French party and was "not about to start now.” While she was still voting in Italy, she was part of a "bobo” (bourgeois-bohemian) community of artists that voted left, she said. But that had changed.

"I no longer really feel left-wing,” Bruni-Sarkozy, who has been the conservative Sarkozy for three years, said. France is gearing up for presidential elections in spring 2012.

The increasingly-unpopular Sarkozy, who is expected to seek a second term, faces an uphill battle against the opposition Socialist Party. His wife, who scored an approval rating of 66% in a recent poll by Ifop institute, said she would support him if he bid for re-election.

Meanwhile, she has continued her own singing career and just finished writing a dozen songs for her fourth album, due out in September. Her debut folk album Quelqu’un m’a dit was a runaway success, ratcheting up worldwide sales of around 2mn copies. Since becoming first lady, however, her music sales have taken a hit.

Sources close to Bruni-Sarkozy told Le Parisien that her latest album resembles the first. She is not expected to spend much time promoting the album, however, given that it will go on sale shortly before the election.