Bruni didn't want to meet Sarkozy

2008-02-03 12:05

Paris - Carla Bruni did not want to go to the dinner at which she met French President Nicolas Sarkozy, sparking the lightning romance and their wedding on Saturday, a friend of the couple said.

The dinner was organised for Sarkozy a couple of weeks after his divorce in October by top French advertising executive Jacques Seguela.

"Jacques asked her at the last minute to come over, bring her guitar and sing a song. She is not right wing and she really did not want to be there," the friend told AFP.

"It was hard work to get her there."

Bruni has made no secret in the past of her left wing views, even saying in an interview with a British newspaper just after the French election in May that she supported Sarkozy's socialist rival Segolene Royal.

But Seguela has already told French media that it was "love at first sight" when Sarkozy and Bruni met at the dinner. "They have both since said they are surprised but Seguela is right," said the friend.

In an interview with French radio in December, Seguela said: "They had never seen each other but now I think they will never leave each other again."

Sarkozy's divorce from his second wife Cecilia had only been announced just over two weeks before the dinner was organised.

"Nicolas was feeling very lonely. He said to me: 'Organise a dinner among friends at your house with your gang, I can't bear being alone in the evening at the Elysee," Seguela said.

"I wanted to have a dinner with my left wing friends and so I invited people who would get a reaction," added the advertising tycoon, a former advisor to France's past socialist governments.

- AFP