Marriage advisers caution Sarkozy not to rush

PARIS: Marriage advisers say French President Nicolas Sarkozy should be careful not to rush into a hasty marriage with Carla Bruni, cautioning the glamourous couple to take their time and beware of too much media spotlight.
   
Sarkozy, who only divorced his wife Cecilia a few months ago, has dropped hints that he intends to marry the glamourous talian ex-model Bruni, and L'Est Republicain daily said on Monday the two might have already tied the knot last Thursday.
   
Psychologists say marrying Bruni would be both a public and private display of success for the 52-year old president.
   
"I'd say he's got a new lease of life," said Coral Miller, a marriage councillor in London.
   
"Very often, men at that sort of age want to prove that they can still, how shall I say, hack it and he's also the president. He needs to have a partner ... to help him and to socialise."
   
Sarkozy has said he wants to be open about his relationship with Bruni, and pictures of the suntanned president in sunglasses and orange shorts embracing his bikini-clad girlfriend on holiday have travelled around the globe.
   
But some psychologists say talk of a wedding seems early, coming only months after Sarkozy divorced Cecilia after 11 years of marriage.
   
"A marriage with Carla Bruni would seem hasty, as if he wants to make the fact that Cecilia left him forgotten as uickly as possible," said sexologist Georges Abraham in Geneva.
   
Abraham said Sarkozy did not want voters to see him as a person who had been dumped and aimed to project the image of a an who was successful privately as well as politically.
   
Miller cautioned that Bruni and Sarkozy were at a "stage of the relationship where it's all bright, sparkly, brand new."
   
"Sometimes things wear off and you suddenly realise that's not what you want. (My advice would be): Don't rush it. Wait and see if it's got a little bit more longevity about it," she said.
   
'ENOUGH OF BRIDES'
   
The media frenzy surrounding the couple also comes with some risk to the relationship, psychologists say.
   
"Your private life might turn into a show," said Paris pyschologist Antoine Spaeth. ''The relationship could be altered r based on something that might be a bit illusionary ... If I were to give them one piece of advice (for marriage), it would be not to focus too much on the media and keep their privacy."
   
Many commentators have played up the physical similarities between Cecilia, 50, and Bruni, 40, who are both slender and runette, used to work as models and both stand several centimetres taller than the president.
   
"Often mocked, a small man can boast about going out with a taller woman, especially when she's beautiful," Pascal Bruckner,author of the book 'My little husband', told Elle weekly.

"Carla Bruni makes Sarkozy taller and vice versa."   

Sarkozy's own mother, however, has expressed doubts about her son remarrying, telling a magazine last month:"I've had enough of brides".