Carla, Valerie battle to be next French first lady

FRANCE: In May, the supermodel third wife of one French presidential candidate or the journalist girlfriend of the other will walk triumphantly into the Elysee.

But whether Carla Bruni-Sarkozy reclaims her first lady spot or Valerie Trierweiler wrests it away from her, an air of glamour and a faint whiff of scandal will likely linger in the presidential palace.

Trierweiler is tipped to take on the role, according to opinion polls which consistently put her partner, Socialist Francois Hollande, ahead of the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.

But no one is ruling out a come-back by the combative right-wing president.

The two women -- each a vital part of the campaign arsenal even if neither candidate has so far deployed his elegant partner too overtly -- could not be from more different backgrounds.

Bruni, 44, is the wealthy daughter of an Italian industrialist, while Trierweiler, 47, is the offspring of a disabled father and a mother who worked at the ticket office of an ice rink in the Loire Valley.

Both brunettes carved out highly successful careers for themselves: Bruni as a supermodel and pop singer and Trierweiler as a political journalist for Paris Match magazine and as a television presenter.

And their relationships with their men both began in circumstances that raised many eyebrows. Bruni, whose notoriously long string of previous lovers include Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Donald Trump, married Sarkozy in early 2008 just months after the newly elected president divorced his second wife, Cecilia.

Cecilia had stood by his side on election night in May 2007 even though she knew that their relationship was over -- apparently by her choice.

In an ironic parallel, Hollande had stood loyally by his ex-partner Segolene Royal, the mother of his four children, as she battled Sarkozy for the presidency in the same 2007 race. Hollande had been in a relationship with Trierweiler, whom he had known for two decades, since 2005 but kept it quiet with the help of a compliant media.

Trierweiler, a divorced mother of three, says in a new book, extracted in the Paris Match magazine for which she works, that Royal knew of their liaison. “She knew the truth about the real nature of the ties uniting Francois and me,” she told the author of “Valerie, Carla, Cecilia, Bernadette and the others on the campaign trail.” Reports of their rivalry led to speculation -- which she denies -- that Trierweiler made sure that Royal was airbrushed out of a film screened to the faithful at Hollande's campaign launch in January. AFP