France’s first lady Carla Bruni spoke openly about her pregnancy for the first time in a newspaper interview published on Friday — but kept the baby’s gender a secret.
Rumors have swirled for months, starting with a story in gossip magazine Closer in April and followed by near-obsessive coverage of Bruni’s baby bump, but Friday’s interview with regional daily Nice Matin was the first official confirmation the presidential couple are expecting their first child. Bruni is said to be due to give birth in the autumn, around the time French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to announce he will run for a second term in next year’s election. Bruni, a singer-songwriter and former model, declined to say whether her baby was a boy or a girl.
“There are some things that one has to keep secret,” she said.
Asked why she had been so discreet, Bruni, 43, said: “First in order to protect myself, to avoid having to expose my personal life. It’s a great joy for me, but one that is fairly banal after all.”
“People have other problems and it would be out of place to talk about it too much,” she added.
Photographed by Nice Matin, Bruni appears relaxed and maternal in a flowing pink gown, lounging on a floral-patterned sofa and strolling through the gardens of Fort de Bregancon, the president’s retreat in the south of France. Shots of Bruni taken in May at the G8 summit in Deauville, France, showing her wearing a black dress with a prominent bump, garnered intense coverage and nearly overshadowed an otherwise protocol-heavy gathering of world leaders.
Friday’s interview, the day after the Bastille Day national holiday when many French people are relaxing at vacation homes, had the feel of a well-staged press event, coming on the heels of a photo spread in Paris Match magazine featuring the presidential couple lazing in swimwear at the beach. With Sarkozy laboring under weak poll ratings nine months from the election, Bruni’s pregnancy appears to be a stroke of good fortune that could win sympathy points with some voters.
Sarkozy and his former wife, Cecilia, divorced shortly after he was elected in 2007. He has since accustomed the French public to following episodes of his private life as they are played out in gossip magazines. He was recently the subject of a film called La Conquete, which has drawn about 700,000 viewers since it came out in May.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese