France prepares for Sarkozy separation news

PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy's rocky marriage to his wife Cecilia appeared on the verge of collapse on Thursday, as the press for the first time headlined reports of the couple's imminent separation.   

Several newspapers reported that divorce proceedings were initiated on Monday, when Cecilia Sarkozy went to a family court judge in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. The judge later visited Sarkozy at the Elysee palace where he co-signed the divorce papers, according to the reports.   

After weeks of speculation and official 'no comments' on the state of the marriage, it was the first concrete report of a split. "Things have changed ... we have begun moving from rumours to facts," the left-wing Liberation said.   

The couple married in 1996 and has a ten year-old child, but their relationship has been famously turbulent. In 2005 she left him for several months for an affair with an advertising executive.    Rumours have proliferated in recent weeks as a result of Cecilia Sarkozy's evident unhappiness in her role as first lady.   

She never moved into the Elysee palace and has barely been seen in the company of her husband. Her last public appearance was in September at the funeral of her first husband, television presenter Jacques Martin. She has also flunked several foreign visits, in August crying off a lunch party with US President George W. Bush.

Two weeks ago she offended the Bulgarian government when she refused to come to Sofia with her husband to receive an award for her help in the Libya nurses affair. Hidebound by legal constraints, the French press has until now only eluded glancingly to the couple's problems. But on Thursday the change in coverage was dramatic, as newspapers ran cover splashes on the affair.   

'Desperate Housewife' headlined Liberation, beneath a full-page picture of Cecilia. All the weekly new magazines, which appeared Thursday, carried the couple's problems on their front pages.     The popular weekly Paris-match had a three-page photo-spread of the president's wife, in which the former model poses in a Paris hotel. The piece was entitled 'Cecilia -- a woman serene' but it contained no revelations about her marriage.   

The European press has been far more direct, with Swiss, Belgian and British newspapers carrying regular stories in recent days on the divorce rumours. Even the ultra-sober Financial Times carried the reports on Thursday.

The couple first met in 1984 when Sarkozy -- then mayor of Neuilly -- officiated at her wedding to Martin. Twelve years later, both now divorced with two children each, she and Sarkozy married and in 1997 their son Louis was born.  Born into a wealthy Jewish-Spanish family based in France -- her grandfather was a Spanish ambassador -- Cecilia is an independent and impulsive woman, and she made no secret that she would not play a conventional role as president's wife.   

In an interview before the election, she said she did not see herself as a first lady. "It bores me. I prefer going round in cowboy boots and combat trousers. I don't fit the mould," she said. For his part Sarkozy, 52, spoke publicly of his emotional reliance on his wife and his need to please her. Their separation in 2005 left him by his own account 'profoundly shaken'.   

"Everything indicates a dependence on his wife. On her presence depends the president's psychological state. If the head of state gets heartsick, the whole country sneezes," said Christophe Barbier, editor of l'Express magazine.    

Some constitutional experts said there could be difficulties obtaining a divorce because the president's position as guarantor of the law means he cannot appear before a judge. However others said that a divorce by mutual consent should not pose problems.