Bruni will 'understand' if public scorns new album

PARIS (AFP) - Carla Bruni said she would "understand" if the French public scorn her new song album because of her marriage to President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a pre-release interview on Wednesday. "If people don't listen because I married the president of the republic, I understand. If they do listen because I married the president of the republic, I will be delighted. "And if people, especially, like it, that is what counts for me," the 40-year-old first lady told France Inter radio. The third album by the supermodel-turned-chanteuse, "Comme Si De Rien N'Etait" (Simply), hits the stores on Friday (tomorrow) in France and much of Europe. Fans were able to get a preview from Wednesday of the 14 tracks, including "Tu es ma came," a love song that draws a tongue-and-cheek parallel with drug addiction, at Bruni's website www.carlabruni.com. Bruni, who wrote 11 of the songs, has said she was aware the public response to the album "risks being scrambled" by her marriage to Sarkozy in February, which followed a whirlwind three-month romance. The first lady is not planning a tour to promote the album and will donate all royalties to charity. But she said she stood by her decision to keep up her singing career following her marriage. "It is 2008. Women often keep their jobs when they marry, even when they marry someone with such an important job as my husband," she said, pointing out that Cherie Blair kept working as a lawyer throughout her husband's term as British prime minister. Asked about a possible fourth album, however, she suggested her official role would now take priority. "I don't know if I will be able to write an album between now and 2012," when Sarkozy's mandate ends. "If I manage to, I would be lucky." "If I give enough to my new role, in terms of what I can really do to help other people, would that not take up all of a person's time? Bruni, who describes herself as a left-winger, said she understood there were some "hostile" reactions to her marriage to the right-winger Sarkozy. "I absolutely understand all reactions. That is why I consider myself a woman of the left, in the freedom I allow other people. I thought that was what the left was about," she said.

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