When Cécilia Sarkozy refused to join the French President Nicolas Sarkozy on a trip to meet US President George W. Bush and his wife Laura last August, it was apparent to everyone that the marriage was finally over. So it proved when they divorced last month, giving Sarkozy an unenviable place in the history books, the first French head of state to end his marriage in office since Napoléon Bonaparte back in 1809.
In Bonaparte’s case, of course, it was a ruthless decision to divorce his Empress Joséphine, driven by his need for an heir, and to wed a fecund Austrian archduchess. Président Sarkozy apparently has no plans to re-marry and have more children. Nothing, however, would surprise the French public, which has learned that politicians are even less forthright about their private lives than about how they perform their public duties.
Despite a statement from the Elysée Palace that the couple would not be making any statements, Cécilia Sarkozy had allegedly already arranged to give interviews to two publications that could be counted on to give her a sympathetic hearing: L’Est Républicain and the monthly magazine, Elle. In them she vigorously denied that their appearances as a united couple during the election campaign were a sham, saying, “We tried to save our relationship, right up to the end.”
In Cécilia’s favour is her outright rejection of the trappings of the presidency, “after staying in the shadows” for her husband over a period of twenty years. She said she was not cut out for the public role of first lady. What emerged, however, was that the marriage had been over to all intents and purposes since 2005, when Cecilia fell in love with another man and went to live with him in New York.
There was no immediate comment from the Socialists, whose presidential candidate Ségolène Royal has split from her partner François Hollande – they never made it to the altar – and is now after his job as the head of the party.
November 2007
