Sarkozy loses it, or abandons himself to the moment—take your pick. A tabloid tale made in heaven, courtesy of the Daily Mail:

Sarkozy’s fiancee ‘pregnant’ as ex Cecilia delivers blistering attack on couple

Sarkozy is “ridiculous, badly behaved and not fit to be president” Cecilia Sarkozy says in a new book, adding for good measure that the women in his life are just a “bunch of slappers” (or des petasses fardees, as the French would have it).

Even the president’s female political colleagues do not escape her barbed tongue: they are just “boring wallflowers, and now that there is no First Lady, he needs to surround himself with pretty young things dressed in Dior”.

It has taken just a few short weeks for the revenge of Cecilia to begin.

Sarkozy, 52, began dating Bruni, 40, just one month after his divorce from Cecilia following a 12-year marriage and his election last May as France’s new president.

Now it is Carla who stays with the president at the Elysee Palace and has been given a £10,000 ring - embarrassingly similar to one he once bought Cecilia.

Very juicy and totally sensationalistic as told by the Mail.

In the New York Times this past week, Sarkozy himself suggested that he’s being very 21st-century:

Sarkozy Says Press Is Free to Ignore His Personal Life

“I didn’t want to lie,” Mr. Sarkozy said of his romance with Ms. Bruni. “And I am breaking with a deplorable tradition in our political life — that of hypocrisy, that of lies.” …

“Really, truly, and it is very satisfying for me, France is moving forward,” he said, his words tumbling out in incomplete sentences. “What was hidden under a mantle of secrecy for one of my predecessors — whom I will not judge — everyone must live as he sees fit.”

It’s nutty, but I’m gonna have to go with Sarkozy here, because of his real defense, which he said just after “everyone must live as he sees fit”:

“Life is so difficult and so painful.”

Indeed, and he wants to feel good. He’s got the right to do it. However, as the much more sensationalistic but also more informative Daily Mail piece tell us, Sarkozy’s behavior affects not only his popularity at home but also France’s relations abroad:

Aside from any pregnancy, a speedy wedding would also mark the end of headaches for protocol planners in foreign countries Sarkozy plans to visit, though he might still be a bachelor when he goes to Saudi Arabia and India later this month.

Dominique Moisin, of the French Institute of International Relations, szaid: “The sooner they marry, the sooner the presidency’s dignity will be restored. …
Sarkozy was disappointed that the Pope declined to receive him with his new girlfriend. Under Vatican protocol it was deemed “inappropriate” for a head of state to meet the pontiff on an official visit, accompanied by a girlfriend.

Meanwhile, the Indian government, which is receiving Sarkozy as a guest of honour at the Republic Day Parade in New Delhi on January 24, has released a half-hearted statement, saying: “It is for the French to decide whether Miss Bruni should be treated as First Lady or not”.

It will be fascinating to see what happens when Sarkozy arrives in Britain for the state visit in March. Since the Entente Cordiale - the end of centuries of war between Britain and France - was signed in 1904 every French leader on a state visit has been accompanied by a First Lady.

So, yeah. He’s got a right to personal happiness, but we’ll see if he manages to hold on to the respect that a politician with his global ambitions needs in order to effect his agenda.

Or perhaps that time has passed into oblivion.

We do live in interesting times, don’t we?