PARIS: By making Carla Bruni France’s new first lady, President Nicolas Sarkozy draws the curtain on a paparazzi-fuelled soap opera that has played havoc with his image at home and abroad.

Sarkozy, 53, and the 40-year-old Italian ex-supermodel were married on Saturday at the Elysee Palace, with about 20 relatives and friends present, following weeks of fevered speculation that a wedding was imminent.

But can marriage turn the tables for the French president, whose popularity has been in freefall since the start of his celebrity romance as voters suspect him of neglecting his promise to rev up the economy?

After a month in which the gossip press stalked the couple from Egypt to Jordan, Sarkozy’s rating has tumbled to 41 per cent, its lowest point since he took office in May, according to a new TNS-Sofres poll.

Polls suggest the media soap opera surrounding the couple has alienated many of his older, conservative supporters.

“The French were clearly fed up by these images of exotic holidays, yachts and private jets — a president who seemed elsewhere, obsessed by his ‘Carlita’,” wrote Le Parisien newspaper.

“Now that she is first lady... the Sarkozy camp hopes her hero can get fully back to work.”

“Relief abroad, relief at home, where even the president’s friends were alarmed to see his private life eclipse his political work,” commented the Journal du Dimanche.

Sarkozy’s third wedding came less than four months after he ended his stormy 11 year marriage to Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz in October.

French experts are divided over how the marriage will affect the president’s popularity.

With March municipal elections seen as a key test for Sarkozy’s right-wing camp, the hyperactive president has sought to seize back the initiative, with a series of trips planned to show he is addressing voters’ economic concerns.

Political analyst Dominique Reynie warns however that the president is fighting “a very serious potential crisis in image terms” as his political honeymoon draws brutally to an end.—AFP