Is she or isn’t she? Carla Bruni baby game on

Posted by mija on Dec 27, 2010 in News | 0 comments

Curious events involving an Indian mystic and an approaching election have thrown France into a fever of speculation over its first couple.
It focuses on whether President Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, his glamorous wife, are planning to have a baby to boost his re-election campaign.
France has been obsessed with the baby question ever since the 55-year-old “Sarko” married Bruni, a folk singer and former model, a few months after divorcing Cecilia, his second wife, three years ago.
Glossy magazines and the blogosphere have often jumped the gun by detecting a supposed bulge in Bruni’s tummy and it suffices for the premiere dame to disappear from public view for only a few days for her to be declared pregnant.
The latest frenzy of speculation, however, was triggered by events far from Paris: on a state visit to India at the beginning of the month, the Sarkozys met a holy man at the shrine of a Sufi saint in the red brick, imperial city of Fatehpur Sikri.
He told the French first couple that when the Mogul emperor Akbar had prayed for a son at the shrine, he had been blessed with four children.
Bruni, 43, who has a nine-year-old son, Aurelien, by her former boyfriend, was very interested in the story, explaining that she wanted to have a child with Mr Sarkozy. He has three boys — Pierre, Jean and Louis — from two previous marriages.
“Inshallah her wish will come true,” the guardian of the shrine told The Times of India, adding he had prayed for her and “breathed into a sacred thread”, which he tied around Bruni’s wrist to help the prayer take effect.
So is a baby Bruni on the way? There have been suggestions in the French media that Mr Sarkozy, who took Bruni to Morocco for a Christmas holiday last week, would be particularly thrilled to have a child with her in the run-up to presidential elections in 2012 when he will stand for re-election against a Socialist and could benefit from a “baby bounce” at the polls.
Liberation, the left-wing daily newspaper, recently ran a page of what it called “fiction” about an unpopular president who impregnates his wife in the hope of improving his chances at the ballot box in 2012.
Only a few months ago, Mr Sarkozy’s re-election would have seemed certain.
However, his reform of the pension system, forcing the French to work longer and harder, has intensified the public’s loathing of him, as have scandals involving favours to the elite.
His approval rating has fallen to its lowest ebb and according to recent opinion polls, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former Socialist finance minister, would easily win if he were to enter the race, abandoning his job in Washington as head of the International Monetary Fund.
Eager to win back the public’s affection, Mr Sarkozy has ordered aides to organise two trips a week for him in January to different parts of France so he can reconnect with voters. He is expected to launch another law-and-order campaign to appeal to conservative voters who might forsake him for the far Right in 2012.
At the same time, he hopes that a more prominent profile on the international stage while France presides over the G20 club of nations will help him to win back support at home.
The problem, says Emmanuel Riviere of the TNS Sofres polling institute, is that: “French people want visible results straight away but it is difficult to obtain them in international conferences.”
At the same time, the economic crisis and budgetary restraints conspire against the easiest way of wooing his subjects: cutting taxes.
That is where a baby might come in handy. An infant in the Elysee, say political pundits, would help France to feel positive about itself and give Mr Sarkozy, a grandfather, a more youthful image.
Bruni has previously expressed her desire for a child with Mr Sarkozy. “If it’s not biologically possible, I’ll adopt one,” she said last year. “I’m not obsessed by blood ties.” She added that she would not “fight against nature”.
“As I already have one, and my husband has three, you can’t really say we have a need of children.”
source: theaustralian.com.au