*Man, only in the 21st century. I dunno whether to laugh, cry or just take careful notes.
Remade in NY: French ex-1st lady has new life
By VERENA DOBNIK (AP) – 2 days ago
NEW YORK — As first lady of France, Cecilia Sarkozy sat in a desert tent with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, winning the release of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death on charges of injecting children with HIV.
Three years later, she's a New Yorker — leading a conference on women in distress and supporting a nun in Queens who rebuilds the lives of ex-convict working moms.
She says it was easy to promote her causes while married to French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"Of course that helps — enormously," says the former first lady, now Cecilia Attias, wife of global events organizer Richard Attias. "You have a lot of power, and you can really help a lot — a lot!"
Her 11-year marriage to Sarkozy ended in October 2007, but that hasn't slowed her down. (((Gee no, why should it, gosh all fish-hooks, &c)))
Attias, 52, heads a new foundation sponsoring Thursday's daylong Manhattan seminar, "Dialogue for Action." Participants include former sexual slaves from Ukraine and Cambodia who are now activists. Also to be tackled are challenges facing Muslim women in America and genital mutilation in Africa. (((Can't wait to see the action these globe-trotting gals come up with.)))
In New York, "I'm not any more the wife of ... I'm just me," Attias told The Associated Press in an interview.
But she added, smiling, "Everything is possible in the United States. I mean, you can do it!"
(...)
She and Richard Attias, her third husband, moved to New York two years ago and share an apartment on Manhattan's East Side and a home in Greenwich, Conn. Living with them is her 13-year-old son with Sarkozy, Louis, who attends the Lycee Francais de New York, a French-language private school in Manhattan.
"I didn't flee from France," she says. "I love my country, I love French people; it was a decision to live in New York."
Her husband is Jewish, while she and Louis are Roman Catholic. They go to church and synagogue and celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah, which she jokingly calls Chrisnukkah. (((Uh, yeah. Why not. Go for it.)))
"Everyone is happy," she says. "The key word for the world is tolerance." ...
