(...)
"I want to have a man who has nuclear power," the ex-supermodel is said to have told the friend who was sitting with her.
She may not have liked Sarkozy's staunch Right-wing views, but she wasn't going to let a little thing like politics come between her and a man with his finger on the button controlling 350 active nuclear warheads.
According to Richard and Boulon-Cluzel, the pair first met on November 23 when Bruni was part of a delegation presenting a report on the French music industry. ((("I want a man who'll help me sell some damn records and get paid for it," that announcement I might have believed. The notion that Carla's hung up on big missile silos – okay, it's crap, but never mind, it's a done deal.)))
While Sarkozy didn't speak to her directly, he later phoned his friend Jacques Seguela, a former Socialist spin doctor, complaining that being at home on his own was unbearable. He asked Seguela to organise a dinner party with a musical theme and invite the beautiful Italian.
Even before she received the invitation, Carla had told a friend that she had been impressed by Sarkozy's "rather handsome features" and "highly individualistic manner".
Another new book, Carla And Nicolas: Chronicle Of A Dangerous Liaison, reveals further details about the night the pair first spoke.
Authors Chris Laffaille and Paul-Eric Blanrue recount how at the dinner party, "other astonished guests were quickly relegated to the ranks of spectators".
Later, Sarkozy was seen staring woefully into space, telling Bruni how lonely he was and how he longed for someone to love.
There was meant to be no talk of politics on the night, although Carla did bring up the subject of mandatory DNA testing of immigrants - something she was firmly opposed to. ((("I want a man who can knock it off with the creeping global fascism of mandatory DNA testing." A perfectly reasonable thing to want.)))
Her own family were effectively refugees - albeit superrich ones - who had left Milan for Paris in 1973 when the terrorist "Red Brigades" were kidnapping Italy's wealthy elite. (((A weird notion – they're offshored ultra-rich refugees fleeing assassins.)))
Always unable to resist a political argument, Sarkozy told her the demonic image the Left had created around him was based on a "misunderstanding".
Sarkozy made much of the fact that numerous socialists, women, and ethnic minorities now sat in his cabinet - something which impressed Carla.
Laffaille and Blanrue describe how the other guests discreetly played a dinner party game - "imagine what might happen to them if they got together as a couple".
To observers, it certainly seemed a strange proposition. Aside from their 13-year age gap and their 5in height gap (she is 5ft 11in, he is 5ft 6in), Sarkozy is seen as France's answer to Margaret Thatcher. Bruni had supported his French Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal.
And while Bruni loves Shakespeare and Picasso and being nude - she once admitted to "enjoying exposing myself physically", Sarkozy has no particular interest in literature or art and is drastically conservative.
According to author Boulon-Cluzel: "Carla's a complex girl. She doesn't tolerate any social mores. Wherever she is, she feels different - in the world of fashion, music. She's a cool babe, very Left Bank. Although very sweet, she can become a demon."...
