The First Lady of France

Recently, everywhere I look, I ran across articles or news about Carla Bruni, the First Lady of France. So I thought that she deserved a blog. Here is an article about Carla Bruni if you want to read about her in depth: http://www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2008/09/bruni200809?currentPage=1

Carla Bruni is the current First Lady of France who married the current French President (Nicolas Sarkozy) in November of last year. Carla Bruni's background is very unconventional for a First Lady. Carla Bruni used to a supermodel and she had had topless pictures (which she referred to them as "artistic" pictures) taken of her during her modeling career. She has had 2 recording albums and is getting ready to release the 3rd one in the coming weeks. When I saw her on last week's 20/20, she sang for Barbara Walters and she was surprisingly good. Her songs reminded me of those romantic French songs that you would hear in movies about Paris.

Carla Bruni came from a very rich family and as a result had a good education growing up. Modeling was a way to achieve independence rather than because she needed the money. She is versed with various musical instruments, including the guitar which she used to accompany her singing during the 20/20 interview. In addition, she speaks a number of languages fluently, and her English was definitely flawless when she was on 20/20. I was amazed of how well-spoken she was during the entire interview and how cleverly she navigated the difficult questions about her background. Whenever she is shown on news clips visiting other countries, she is always appropriately dressed in beautiful suits and she seemed to know the different countries' protocol (like curtsying to the Queen in England).

Carla Bruni has been compared to Jackie Kennedy. Her approval rating in France is higher than her husband.

What makes this story so interesting to me is how different French people are w.r.t. their expectations of their presidents and the spouses in comparison to Americans. Could you imagine how Americans would respond to having a First Lady who is still an active music artist or who used to be a model with "artistic" pictures? :-) Before the current French President married Carla Bruni, he actually went through a public divorce last year with the previous First Lady who by the way had a very public affair and ran away to NYC for a year to live with the other man during Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency. Who amongst any of our US Presidents have dared to have a divorce during their presidency?

This story just got my attention because it made me wonder whether we in America are more conservative in our expectations of our leaders' personal lives. I am not saying that conservativeness is good or bad -- it is just simply different when compared to other countries.