Bruni hopes she's good enough

2008-11-19 14:06

New York - Carla Bruni-Sarkozy told US viewers she hoped she was "good enough" in her role as France's first lady on a late-night television show.

The supermodel-turned-chanteuse who married French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this year appeared on the CBS network's Late Show with David Letterman.

She said she felt honoured to be in the high-profile position. "It's an honour. I just want to be good enough," Bruni-Sarkozy said.

"I'm just worried to be getting good enough to be the first lady of France. But I also like it, and I try my best," she said.

She also shed some light on her whirlwind romance and engagement with Sarkozy, whom she met at a dinner party last November and married just three months later.

It was love at "first sight" for the two of them, and they married in February.

"You know it's not so comfortable to sort of be dating when you're like the president of France," she quipped. "Maybe if he was a doctor or lawyer, we would have been engaged a little longer."

Her new role has so far seen her meet dignitaries including Pope Benedict XVI and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, while also finding time to pursue her own singing career.

Italian by birth but a longtime resident of France, Bruni-Sarkozy discussed having to give up her Italian citizenship when she became a French citizen a few months ago.

Bruni-Sarkozy also spoke of the international reaction to this month's historic election of Barack Obama as the next US president.

"France is thrilled, delighted," she said. "I think the whole world is delighted."

Asked if her husband, who met with US President George W Bush last weekend at a crisis summit of world leaders, got along well with his American counterpart, she offered: "They have to. No choice."

The singer also performed a song in French from her latest album.

- AFP