Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni at Giza pyramids

FRANCE-SARKOZY/GIRLFRIEND, originally uploaded by wojiuxihuan.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni photographed during their visit to the Giza pyramids in Cairo, Egypt on December 30, 2007.

Carla Bruni on Vanity Fair Italian edition

Carla Bruni, originally uploaded by Frederikams.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: Rumored Affairs

With reported affairs on both sides of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the French First Lady Carla Bruni's marriage, Richard Roth of CBS News Online reports on the internet based French fidelity rumors. Watch the video about the French First Couple's reaction about the stories that appeared in the media.

On recent days both the print media and electronic media have been filled with rumours emerging from France about the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy that both of them have been having affairs, after a tweet was posted on Twitter. It was followed by roumours in other news media and a report in a French Sunday newspaper.

The first post on Twitter alleged that Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy had become ‘romantically involved’ with Benjamin Biolay, the popular French musician and a winner at France's recent Victoires de la Musique awards. The roumours then claimed that ‘the jilted Mr. Sarkozy had swiftly found solace in the arms of his 40-year-old ecology minister Chantal Jouanno’, who is also a French karate champion.

During his current visit to the U.K., Mr. Sarkozy travelled without his wife Carla Bruni, who was a former super model. She had accompanied Mr. Sarkozy on his earlier visit to U.K. after he became the French President.

During a joint press conference at Downing Street with the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Sarkozy was asked about the speculation that his marriage was in trouble. The French President angrily reacted to the journalist for asking about rumours about his marriage to Carla Bruni, and rubbished it calling the journalist’s question idiotic, the news media reported.

Mr. Sarkozy told the journalist, "You must know very little about what the President of the Republic actually has to do all day long. I certainly don't have time to deal with these ridiculous rumours, not even half a fraction of a second.” He added, “I love Britain - don't make me bite back those words.”

However, Mr. Brown tried to change the mood at the conference by sharing his own thoughts on the British media, by saying, ‘I have been able to tell Nicolas that I don't believe everything that I read in the British press.’

According to media reports on Thursday, the French President had asked his wife Carla Bruni, who was reported to have been holidaying in Thailand to end her break in there and to return home and he chartered a plane to bring her back home.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy Affairs

Photo: Carla Bruni-Sarkozy at the NATO summit meeting after a tour at Notre Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg, France on 4 April 2009.

Carla Bruni, 42, born in Turin, Italy, is heiress to the fortune created by the Italian tire manufacturing company CEAT, founded in the 1920s by her grandfather Virginio Bruni Tedeschi. After the company was sold in the 1970s to Pirelli, her family moved to France in 1975. She left school at 19 to become a model.

As a model Bruni worked for designers and fashion houses like Christian Dior, Givenchy, Paco Rabanne, Sonia Rykiel, Christian Lacroix, Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Yves Saint-Laurent, Chanel and Versace. Later she left modeling in favor of a career in music.

Her music career did not cease after becoming the First Lady. She released her third album Comme si de rien n'était (As If Nothing Happened) on 11 July 2008.

Bruni-Sarkozy sang for Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday on July 18, 2009 at Radio City Musical Hall in New York City. The event was her first public music appearance since marrying Sarkozy.

She is currently working on her fourth album collaborating with Lenny Kravitz. In January 2010, it was reported that she is working on two separate studio albums, one in French and another in English with release dates set for autumn 2010.

After a lot of speculation, on 23 November 2009 Bruni revealed that she had accepted a role in a forthcoming Woody Allen film, and said, "I'm not an actress at all. Perhaps I'll be completely hopeless but I can't miss an opportunity like this one. When I'm a grandmother I'd like to be able to say I made a film with Woody Allen."

It has been claimed that Bruni was involved with celebrities such as Louis Bertignac, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Donald Trump, Léos Carax, Charles Berling, Arno Klarsfeld, Vincent Perez and former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius. She has said she is easily ‘bored with monogamy’, and that ‘love lasts a long time, but burning desire - two to three weeks’.

Allegedly, while having a relationship with Jean-Paul Enthoven, Bruni fell in love and started an affair with his philosopher son Raphael Enthoven with whom she has a son, Aurelien. Bruni later denied ever having an affair with Raphael's father in an interview published in Vanity Fair, "I never slept with him, not even a minute." But the younger Mr. Enthoven left Bruni saying he felt she was ‘uncommitted to the relationship’.

Bruni met French President Nicolas Sarkozy in November 2007 at a dinner party and later they married on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris. The marriage is Bruni's first and Sarkozy's third. She has an office and staff at her disposal in the East wing of the Élysée Palace.

There was a controversy on the eve of the French First Couple’s state visit to the UK, with the publication by Christie's auction house of a nude photograph of Bruni taken during her career as a model. The photograph sold for $91,000.

Bruni-Sarkozy met the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in August 2008 at a Buddhist temple on a hill in Languedoc, France. Another important event for Bruni was the reception of Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to France in September 2008. She has been critical of Pope Benedict XVI on the controversial subject of religion and AIDS.

Bruni visited New York City in September 2008 with President Nicolas Sarkozy and met for lunch with First Lady Laura Bush at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the Symposium on Advancing Global Literacy and attended the General Assembly in the UN with her Sarkozy.

She also attended state dinners with the Emir of Qatar and wife and with Iraq's president in Paris in 2009. She and Sheikha Mozah, wife of Emir of Qatar, will be working together on education promotion and she visited Doha on the invitation of Sheikha Mozah in November 2009.

Recently, there were reports in many blogs, newspapers and web sites that both Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni are having separate affairs outside their marriage. The suggestion that the couple were both committing adultery first emerged on Twitter, followed by a report in the Sunday newspaper le Journal du Dimanche.

The first tweet claimed that Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy had become romantically involved with Benjamin Biolay, a French musician. It then claimed that the jilted Mr. Sarkozy had swiftly found solace in the arms of his 40-year-old ecology minister Chantal Jouanno who is also a French karate champion. French site suchablog.com alleged that Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy had been a close friend of Biolay for many years and was now unofficially living with him at his flat in Paris. Now, for the first time, rumours of trouble in the marriage have reached the mainstream French media.

Mr. Sarkozy is reported to have had an affair with Cecilia Ciganer-Albaniz, who eventually became his second wife, while he was still married to his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, the mother of his two elder sons. Mr. Sarkozy and his second wife split during his presidential election campaign in 2007.

Michelle Obama with Carla Bruni at the Palais Rohan

Michelle Obama meets with Carla Bruni-Sarkozy at the Palais Rohan (Rohan Palace) on April 3, 2009, in Strasbourg, France.

Carla Bruni with Michelle Obama

The US First Lady Michelle Obama meets with Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wife of French President Sarkozy at the Palais Rohan (Rohan Palace) on April 3, 2009, in Strasbourg, France (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy).

The Black & White Carla Bruni

Carla Bruni, originally uploaded by Iren-Jan.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, an Italian-born French songwriter, singer, and former model, is the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy whom she married at the Elysee Palace on 2 February 2008.

French Singer Benjamin Biolay

Benjamin BIOLAY (chanteur), originally uploaded by startinghere71.

Benjamin Biolay, 37, the French singer and musician and the ex-husband of Chiara Mastroianni, the daughter of Catherine Deneuve and the Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni, is a winner at France's recent Victoires de la Musique awards.

A recent tweet in on Twitter, the microblogging website, suggested that Biolay is in a relationship with the French First Lady Mrs Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, followed by a report in the Sunday newspaper le Journal du Dimanche. The story has also been reported by other established news web sites including Yahoo News France, Le Post, Agoravoxtv, and TV news channel i-Tele.

French Junior Minister for Ecology Chantal Jouanno

programme national de coordination des politiques de recherche sur les transports terrestres (Predit), conference de presse, originally uploaded by Wilfried Maisy.

Chantal Jouanno: French Junior Minister for Ecology (secretaire d'Etat en charge de l'Ecologie)

The 40-year-old former karate champion and French politician Chantal Jouanno has been the Secretary of State for Ecology in the French Government of François Fillon since January 21, 2009. She also has the reputation of being a close ally of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The former karate champion Chantal Jouanno, who was twelve times French champion in her category in Karate, is now alleged to be in a relationship with President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is already jilted after news sites reported that his wife Mrs. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is currently unofficially living with French singer and musician Benjamin Biolay at his flat in Paris. Also, the French web magazine suchablog.com alleged that Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy had been a close friend of Biolay for many years.

The rumours gained momentum after appearing in a blog on the website of Le Journal du Dimanche that read, "It's the gossip of the moment that could become the story of the year. A romance is said to have started a few weeks ago between the First Lady of France and music award winner Benjamin Biolay. The rumours started on Twitter and are now on blogs and websites everywhere. It says the presidential marriage is breathing its last breaths. Carla Bruni is in love with Benjamin Biolay and the president has found solace with Chantal Jouanno."

The news of the affairs -- Chantal Jouanno-Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy-Benjamin Biolay -- also flashed on popular news sites like Yahoo News France, Le Post and Agoravoxtv, as well as TV news channel i-Tele. However, now the rumours of trouble in the marriage of the Sarkozys have appeared the mainstream French media.

Earlier Mr. Sarkozy reportedly had an affair with Cecilia Ciganer-Albaniz, who later became his second wife, while he was still married to his first wife Marie-Dominique Culioli, the mother of his two elder sons. Mr. Sarkozy and his second wife split during his presidential election campaign of 2007 when Cecilia Ciganer-Albaniz started having an affair with the US publicist Richard Attais.