The leader of the far-right Front National, Marine Le Pen, has criticized President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla, for choosing an Italian name for their five-day-old daughter.

"/> The leader of the far-right Front National, Marine Le Pen, has criticized President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla, for choosing an Italian name for their five-day-old daughter.

" />
Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CARLA BRUNI

Sarkozys should have given baby ‘a French name’: Le Pen

The leader of the far-right Front National, Marine Le Pen, has criticized President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla, for choosing an Italian name for their five-day-old daughter.

Published: 24 October 2011 09:44 CEST
Sarkozys should have given baby 'a French name': Le Pen

Le Pen was appearing on a current affairs discussion programme on Sunday when she was asked about the president and his wife’s latest addition.

“I’m very happy for them,” she said. “However, I would have preferred the little girl to have a French name rather than an Italian one.”

“I think that when you’re president of the French republic, it would give a strong signal to give your child a French name. That’s just my patriotic side and I think that lots of French people think the same way as me.”

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy left the private clinic in Paris’ 16th arrondissement on Sunday afternoon with her new daughter in her arms.

President Sarkozy was able to find enough gaps in his busy schedule over the weekend to visit his daughter. The president has been involved in crisis talks over the future of the euro in Berlin and then Brussels.

German chancellor Angela Merkel and British prime minister David Cameron both came bearing gifts for the new parents to the summit in Brussels at the weekend.

Merkel offered the president a teddy bear while Cameron gave a pink baby blanket woven in his constituency of Witney in Oxfordshire.

twitter.com/matthew_warren

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

MUSIC

Why Carla Bruni swapped Italian for English

Multilingual pop star Carla Bruni has spent most of her life speaking Italian and French – but English is the language she prefers to sing in.

Published: 5 October 2017 09:36 CEST
Why Carla Bruni swapped Italian for English
Carla Bruni performs in New York on June 13, 2017. Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP

In her native Italian, she explains, reading a simple menu sounds like poetry, but the words can be hard for non-natives to decipher.

French, her main professional language, is wonderful for writers but lacks tonality – “Rr! Rr! Rr! Rr! Rr! Rr!” she explains for emphasis, exaggerating the Gallic uvulars.

But English, in which the singer, model and former first lady of France recorded her latest album, is the language of rock'n'roll.

“It has a rhythm and it has a sort of tempo that Latin languages don't have,” Bruni told AFP.

“English is a natural singing language.”

French Touch, which comes out on Friday, consists entirely of covers, including Crazy by Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette's Stand By Your Man, Miss You by The Rolling Stones and Enjoy Your Silence by Depeche Mode.

It is Bruni's second English album following 2006's No Promises, in which she adapted poetry. Bruni composes music on guitar but says she doesn't feel comfortable writing lyrics in English.

Bruni said she was not so much offering an alternative interpretation of The Stones or others as she was performing songs she loved.

“It has no logic and no reason,” she said of her album with a laugh. “All of these covers were made with a lot of fun – but also with a lot of modesty.”

Photo: Bertrand Langlois/AFP

Carla Bruni sits by her man, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Photo: Bertrand Langlois/AFP