Sarkozys 'did not lie about relationship'
Cecilia Sarkozy, newly divorced from France’s president, insisted she and her ex-husband did not lie about their relationship to smooth his election campaign.
The Sarkozys’ divorce was announced on Thursday, five months after Nicolas Sarkozy took France’s highest office.
Asked about speculation that the Sarkozys may have presented their relationship as more solid than it really was during the campaign, Mrs Sarkozy was quoted as telling France’s Elle magazine: “I always acted by thinking of my family, not by calculation.”
“Nicolas and I never lied,” she said. “We tried to rebuild and save our relationship. Until the end.”
According to the report, Mrs Sarkozy said she had given her ex-husband 20 years of her life – “20 years that were not always easy, far from it”.
She added that she had a hard time in the spotlight.
“Maybe I’m not like everyone else, but what I miss more than anything is going to shop at the supermarket with my son, Louis,” she said.
The divorce judge granted the Sarkozys joint custody of 10-year-old Louis, their only son together, who will live primarily with his mother. The Sarkozys have two children each from previous marriages.
The tempestuous relationship of the Sarkozys was well known to the French, including their 2005 split when Cecilia left her husband for another man.
In another interview, published on Friday, she said she “fell in love” and left Sarkozy in 2005, “perhaps precipitously”.
The Sarkozys never settled together into the private apartments of the presidential Elysee Palace.
Mrs Sarkozy said she wished her ex-husband well.
“I hope he will find serenity and be the politician that can give our country what it needs, and I hope he will be happy,” she said.
French presidents’ private lives have historically remained off-limits in France’s media, and many voters say politicians should be judged by their acts in office alone. Despite the extensive media coverage around the first couple’s split, a poll released today said 89% of those asked believe the Sarkozys’ divorce was a private affair affecting only them.
According to the Ifop poll in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, only 11% of people said that the president’s private life should be of concern for the French. Pollsters spoke to 964 people aged 18 and over by telephone on Thursday and Friday. No margin of error was given.
