’the french are miserable but sarkozy’s my napoleon,’ says his lover (or wife)

By Phil Meadley

Former supermodel Carla Bruni may have maintained a dignified silence about her relationship with the French president.

But in a startlingly frank interview conducted not long before she met Nicolas Sarkozy, Carla revealed her true feelings about the "miserable" and "negative" French people and the "unbearably polluted" Paris.

She even likened the 52-year-old President - who some reports claim she has secretly married - to the pop star Prince and Napoleon Bonaparte, saying they were short men with "attitude".

Honest: Nicolas Sarkozy’s fiancee Carla Bruni said she wasn’t a fan of the French or Paris

She also claimed older men were "immature" in matters of the heart.

Despite living in France since she was five, Carla admitted she didn’t vote in the last Presidential election last May, and still considers herself Italian.

"I’m not French at all," she said. "I don’t have a French passport I have an Italian passport.

"I like to be Italian. I like the Italian temperament and I like Italian food. French people are in a bad mood for some reason, and Italian people are in a good mood."

Asked if the famously elegant Paris was a nicer city than London, she said: "I don’t think so. I’ve really been surprised at how beautiful London is.

"And in London you don’t feel the pollution because there are so many parks. In Paris, I live on the edge of the city because it’s the only place where you have green spaces.

"In the middle of Paris, it’s really hard, really unbearable."

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She added: "French people are always negative. They also are crazy about their own language, so every time there’s something that’s not in French, they get so mad about it."

Carla’s love life before Sarkozy was complex - seven years ago she left French writer Jean-Paul Enthoven for his married son Raphael.

She has also had relationships with Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger and Donald Trump.

But asked if she preferred older men, Carla, 40 - who has launched a new career as a pop singer - said: "They never get mature - only age.

"A man is the way he is at the age of 20, basically forever.

"They don’t seem to have an evolution. The older man is just older. He’s not stronger.

"They learn in life and from their job but in relationships, what they are they stay."

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She recalled how she met pop star Prince at a fashion show at the Ritz Hotel in Paris for Gianni Versace.

"Prince decided to leave without saying a word, so he stood up and his entire entourage left with him, leaving us alone.

"We’d only got as far as the starter. Prince is really small," she said, "really cute, but really strange."

And asked if short men had more attitude than taller men, she said: ’Well there’s something in that —Napoleon, Sarkozy... ’

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