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Sarkozy SMS story 'rock solid'
09/02/2008 21:46 - (SA)
Paris - The editor of a magazine that alleged French President Nicolas Sarkozy text-messaged his ex-wife offering to call off his wedding to Carla Bruni if she came back stood by the story on Saturday.
"I have my sources, I confirm" the report published on Wednesday on the website of the left-leaning weekly Nouvel Observateur, which prompted Sarkozy to call in the police, editor Airy Routier said in an interview broadcast on the Canal Plus network.
In a posting on Wednesday headlined "the obsession with Cecilia" the nouvelobs.com website said Sarkozy had messaged his ex-wife Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz eight days before he married Bruni on February 2.
"If you come back, I'll call it all off," he was reported to have told the woman he had divorced less than four months before.
Prosecutors said on Thursday the case had been referred to the judicial police in the French capital, six days after Sarkozy tied the knot with the Italian-born former supermodel turned singer-songwriter.
The French president filed suit against the website for "falsification, use of false documents and possession of stolen goods", his lawyer Thierry Herzog said.
But Routier said on Saturday, "I have not committed any falsification or used false documents and it has to be proved that I did."
He added that the report "is rock solid, and besides I know that Sarkozy has not stopped sending text messages to Cecilia".
But he said he would say nothing that would reveal his source or sources.
Router said he did not think that he had "crossed the line" of infringing on Sarkozy's privacy, as "the president, who mixes his public and private life, confuses the issue".
Sarkozy, 53, remarried less than four months after ending his stormy 11-year marriage to Cecilia, 50, with whom he has a young son, Louis. The couple announced their divorce on October 18.
"To my knowledge, it is the first time that a serving president has lodged a complaint against a media outlet," Herzog said on Thursday, "but it is also the first time that a serving president has been treated so badly".
Routier said, "I think that I am being made an instrument in a strategy that is much more widespread, which concerns all journalists at the moment, of resuming control and enforcement against the profession".
Under French law, the maximum penalty in such a case is three years in prison and a fine of €45 000. The courts could also order that the source of the story, which was still visible on the website on Saturday, be revealed.
Sarkozy's much-publicised romance with model-turned-singer Bruni highlighted by shows of conspicuous wealth has been blamed for plunging poll ratings as ordinary French people see their buying power weakening.
- AFP
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