Sarkozy and Bruni Both Having Affairs?

Well, this is France we're talking about. And this is the female politician Nicolas Sarkozy is allegedly linked to.

Suchablog.com has published posts saying that Carla Bruni fell in love with the French singer Benjamin Biolay, who just won the award for best male singer and best album of the year at the prestigious "Victoires de la musique."

Bruni and Biolay have reportedly been friends for many years. And according to suchablog.com, Bruni and Biolay already live together. The same blog, which brands itself as a web magazine, also says that president Sarkozy has found "comfort in the arms" of right-wing politician Chantal Jouanno - a 40-year-old cabinet member in charge of the environment as well as a karate champion.

But the French establishment media is legendarily indifferent when it comes to covering the private affairs of their elected leaders. So there has been no questioning of the president about all this. The way the possible scandal has slowly emerged in France stands in stark contrast to how it would be covered in the tabloid culture of the American media, according to observers here.

This hyperactive, American-friendly president and this French-Italian former model and singer have always been flamboyant and always prompted all kinds of speculations and rumors, including that Sarkozy was begging his former wife Cecilia to get back together, to rumors of a Sarkozy-Bruni baby. But now the rumor mill is working overtime in France, and a lot of it is ending up online.

Other websites to run the rumor include the well-known blog Le Post, Yahoo News France and Agoravoxtv.

For now mainstream media haven't published the rumors, which bloggers said are more likely to become public after the March 21 regional elections in France.

On television, only the news channel i-tele has suggested that Sarkozy and Jouanno, and Bruni and Biolay, are close. An i-tele presenter said on the air that Bruni was the first to congratulate Biolay for his awards, and wondered whether Sarkozy had had the time to congratulate minister Jouanno on her recent karate win.

Like the French media, ours is also indifferent to politicians having affairs (see Edwards, John). Well, if they're Democrats, that is. Republicans, of course, are held to much higher standards.

I went to check out suchablog.com and got as far as this link before I was completely distracted, for obvious reasons.