Category: Gender in the world 
2009-03-05
The ex-wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy is moving to America full time to campaign against domestic violence on women.
It follows disturbing reports that C?cilia Attias, 51, complained to police about ‘brutal exchanges’ while living with France’s head of state.
At the time the glamorous former model was conducting an on-off affair with multi-millionaire businessman Richard Attias, whom she finally married in March, soon after divorcing Mr Sarkozy.
In a further twist to the astonishing love triangle, it has emerged that C?cilia is set to start her new life without Mr Attias.
Instead she will be moving to New York as an independent lobbyist, devoting herself to the newly formed C?cilia Attias Foundation for Woman.
Setting out its aims, the foundation’s publicity reads: ‘In 2009, the cause chosen by C?cilia Attias is the fight against domestic violence, a terrible plague that is unfortunately increasing rapidly.’
The development will be of concern to Mr Sarkozy following allegations contained in Love, Rupture and Betrayal, a book by the highly respected French author Hubert Coudurier.
Published last year, it records a vicious row between Mr Sarkozy and C?cilia before the presidential elections of May 2007.
It led to a complaint to police, although no action was taken against Mr Sarkozy.
Instead he moved out of the home he shared with C?cilia in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the upmarket Paris suburb, and went to stay with a friend.
Mr Sarkozy was warned by the then interior minister, Francois Baroin, about the complaint.
C?cilia famously refused to vote for her husband during the 2007 presidential election, and did not attend his victory celebrations.
When she finally surfaced, she looked haggard and tearful. She was so depressed at the time that she was briefly admitted to hospital and put on antidepressants.
Although C?cilia spent a couple of months as First Lady, divorce became inevitable.
And last week Mr Sarkozy’s third wife, Carla Bruni, admitted she was struggling to curb the president’s notoriously aggressive temper.
In the French First Lady’s most controversial interview to date, she portrayed Mr Sarkozy as a fiery despot who constantly need calming down.
Carla, whose physical resemblance to C?cilia has often been remarked upon, said: ‘A lot of people are scared of him, not just because of his position, but because of his temper.’
C?cilia told Paris-based Gala magazine she was leaving Dubai, where Mr Attias runs a successful PR agency, because she wanted to ‘give everything’ to her foundation.
She also said that her young son with Mr Sarkozy, 11-year-old Louis, had always ‘dreamed of living’ in New York, where ‘he has his friends.’
Referring to her third husband, C?cilia said: ‘Richard will continue to work in Dubai, in the United States and elsewhere, but his little family will be based in New York.’
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