Sarkozy saga: I’ll see you one wedding and raise you one

THE ex-wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy has wed a public relations executive in a chic ceremony that the French media poked fun at yesterday.

Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz, 50, wed Richard Attias, 48, on Sunday, less than two months after ex husband Sarkozy wed singer and former model Carla Bruni in Paris.

“Three marriages and a year of erring,” was the headline in France’s Liberation newspaper.

“Knowing perfectly well that this is information which interests no one, let’s remark that this weekend in New York, Cecilia Isabel Ciganer-Albeniz married Richard Attias,” the article’s opening paragraph read.

Le Figaro said the wedding took place in the Rainbow Room of the Rockefeller Centre with 150 guests.

Ciganer-Albeniz left Paris with Attias last Tuesday for a schedule of wedding events, starting with a party at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, on Friday.

The couple and many of their guests dined out in Manhattan on Saturday and took in the Broadway musical Mamma Mia. It is Cecilia’s third marriage.

Sarkozy was the mayor of the affluent Paris suburb Neuilly and in 1984 he performed the marriage between her and TV presenter Jacques Martin, with whom she has two daughters.

Her marriage in 1996 with Sarkozy, with whom she has a son Louis, 11, ran into a crisis when he was interior minister and she stayed for a time with Attias.

Cecilia returned in a well-publicised reconciliation and later started off her stint as France’s first lady though she never lived in the Élysée palace. There was a media uproar over her presidential credit card and her preference for a state residence in Versailles.

On October 15, the couple separated. Around Christmas, Sarkozy was photographed at Euro Disney with Bruni whom he married at the Élysée, on February 2.

The news website www.bakchich.info said the wedding list for the Attias couple was posted on the site of the Le Bon Marché department store and included a Christofle pepper mill at €205, from a list worth a total of €20,000.

Attias, a Frenchman born in Morocco, works for Publicis as an events organiser. The couple is set to move back to Neuilly.

Meanwhile, Sarkozy is reportedly giving himself an image makeover, trading in his flashy style for a more dignified demeanour with his approval ratings dropping just 10 months after his election.

Much has been made by the French media of his jet-setting lifestyle, his affinity for Rolex watches and private yachts and his glamorous love life. But his recent appearances have come in more statesman-like, traditional presidential roles, including marking the death of France’s last World War I veteran and paying homage to World War II Resistance heroes.

Sarkozy will meet Queen Elizabeth II and lay a wreath at a de Gaulle statue during a trip to Britain this week.

Pollsters analysed why his conservative UMP party lost cities in local elections that ended March 16. A poll showed a majority believes he should “adopt a more presidential style”.