SAINT DENIS DE LA REUNION (France), Dec 18: A French court awarded first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy 40,000 euros ($57,500) in damages from a company that sold bags emblazoned with a picture of her in the nude.

The case was the latest in a series of legal actions over the presidential couple’s image, which have drawn accusations of frivolity from critics of the media-savvy Sarkozys.

The photo of Bruni-Sarkozy was taken in 1993, when she was a professional model. She had asked for 125,000 euros in damages from Pardon, a fashion chain in the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion which used it without her permission.

“The unauthorised use of the image of Carla Bruni caused her moral and economic damage,” a court in the island capital Saint Denis de la Reunion said on Thursday.—Reuters