Who's your favorite whimsical princess --the late Diana or Cécilia?
The vanishing first lady under scrutiny in France
By Doreen Carvajal
Published: August 13, 2007
PARIS France's first ladies have often played ill-defined roles, but lately Cécilia Sarkozy, the wife of the French president, is getting more attention for her vanishing acts - most recently skipping out on a picnic with the Bush family in New England.
After accepting a rare, personal invitation to dine with President George W. Bush and his family in Kennebunkport, Maine, on Saturday, Cécilia Sarkozy stayed behind with her children at a luxury rental house in New Hampshire. She left it to President Nicolas Sarkozy to meet the Bush clan and offer public regrets for the glamorous 49-year-old former model.
At a news conference, the French president blamed a severe sore throat for his wife's absence. But on the French side of the Atlantic, newspapers quickly started marveling at the first lady's miraculous recovery.
The French daily Le Parisien pointed out that Cécilia Sarkozy had been spotted in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, the day after the lunch shopping with two friends. With the help of a medical expert, the newspaper calculated how long it would take for a severe sore throat to develop. The conclusion: her malady was not serious.
Le Figaro, a right-leaning daily, also took stock of the swift reappearance Sunday, when Cécilia Sarkozy took a stroll in shorts and a T-shirt in the company of two friends.
Her disappearance Saturday inevitably evoked memories of other absences from most of Nicolas Sarkozy's biggest presidential campaign events, including the giddy moment that her husband claimed victory as France's new president.
She was also missing from the voting booth, which French journalists discovered after the election by checking public voting records. And she vanished again after a brief appearance at a Group of 8 summit this summer, leaving her husband as the only unaccompanied head of state at a gala dinner hosted by the German chancellor.
This time, Cécilia Sarkozy missed out on a lunch of hamburger, corn on the cob and blueberry pie that marked a warming in Franco-American relations, as Sarkozy mingled with Bush, his wife and parents, and brother Jeb.
"It didn't pass far from a diplomatic incident," the regional daily Charente Libre editorialized. "But without a doubt, we would have paid less attention to this American episode if she hadn't been so present in Tripoli at the behest of her husband, the president."
Cécilia Sarkozy traveled to Libya last month as a presidential emissary, arriving at a critical time in the European Union's efforts to win the release of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus.
In two trips to Libya, she met with the prisoners and the families of the children along with the Libyan leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi. During her second trip, the nurses and doctor were freed, but critics complained that the deal for their release involved a €296 million, or $405 million, weapons contract.
There was also unease about the role of Cécilia Sarkozy, whose aides have promised that she will reveal how she intends to shape her role as the first lady of France after the summer.
A cartoon in the influential newspaper Le Monde pictured Nicolas Sarkozy introducing himself to Qaddafi. "I know," snapped the Libyan leader. "You're Cécilia's husband."
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