So the French are treated to an embarrassing farce being played out at the highest levels. The ex-model and ex-wife damns the ex-model soon-to-be new wife while the president rushes around like a love-sick teenager.

The title of "Maneater" was bestowed on Bruni after a very Left Bank entanglement during which she fell in love with the son of her boyfriend.

The son, a philosophy professor called Raphael Enthoven, left his wife, Justine Levy. Justine immediately wrote a best-selling novel about a husband stealer - "beautiful and bionic with the eyes of a killer".

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"On Tuesday, he [Sarkozy] arrived back from his holiday to tell the nation that this was a "serious relationship" and to hint that a wedding was imminent.

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The French public have their suspicions, and his personal popularity is plummeting, not helped by the fact that Carla's past conquests include Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger and Donald Trump. "

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"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."