AP News, October 20th, 2007
Cecilia Sarkozy, newly divorced from France's president, said she and her ex-husband tried to work things out until the end and did not lie about their relationship to help his election campaign, according to a report Saturday.
The Sarkozys' divorce was announced Thursday, five months after Nicolas Sarkozy took France's highest office.
Asked about speculation the Sarkozys may have presented their relationship as more solid than it really was during the campaign, Cecilia Sarkozy was quoted as telling France's Elle magazine: "I always acted by thinking of my family, not by calculation."
"Nicolas and I never lied," she said. "We tried to rebuild and save our relationship. Until the end."
The divorce judge granted the Sarkozys joint custody of their only son together, 10-year-old Louis, who will live primarily with his mother. The Sarkozys have two children each from previous marriages.
In Portugal on Friday, Nicolas Sarkozy bristled at a question about the divorce during a news conference, telling reporters that his private life was not a public matter.
"I was elected by the French to find solutions to their problems, not to comment on my private life," he said.
The Sarkozys' tempestuous relationship was well known to the French, including their 2005 split when Cecilia left her husband for another man. In another interview, published Friday, she said she "fell in love" at the time and left Sarkozy "perhaps precipitously."
French presidents' private lives have historically remained off-limits to France's media, and many voters say politicians should be judged by their acts in office alone. Despite the extensive media coverage around the first couple's split, a poll released Saturday said 89 percent of those asked believe the Sarkozys' divorce was a private affair affecting only them.
The results of the Ifop poll were published in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper. Pollsters spoke to 964 people aged 18 and up by telephone Thursday and Friday. No margin of error was given.
