Carla Bruni renounces her Left-wing bohemian past

France’s First Lady Carla Bruni has renounced her left-wing past. Soon after she married President Sarkozy in February 2008, she declared she was “instinctively left-wing”, adding: “Nobody has to be joined at the hip in politics or with one's husband.” But she has now told Le Parisien that she doesn’t “really feel left-wing any more”.

Asked what had prompted the political volte-face, the 43-year-old Italian former model did not put it down to sharing her life with the conservative president for three years.

Instead she blamed her past liberal tendencies on living among bohemian artists, saying: "We were bobos [French slang for champagne socialists] but at that time I voted in Italy. I have never voted for the Left in France and I can tell you, I'm not about to start now.”

Coming a little over 15 months before France goes to the polls to elect its next president, the interview in Le Parisien will delight Sarkozy and his ruling centre-right UMP party.

Though the Socialist party, led by Martine Aubry, is still too divided at this stage to present a credible challenge to Sarkozy, the election last month of Martine Le Pen as the new leader of the Far Right National Front has thrown up a new challenge to the president.

Young and attractive, Martine Le Pen succeeds Jean-Marie Le Pen and is seeking to distance herself from her father’s more rabid right-wing views and in doing so lure disenchanted voters away from Sarkozy, many of whom view his policies on crime and immigration as too liberal.

The president will hope that in turning her back on her left-wing past, his wife (who is nine months older than Madame Le Pen) will help Sarkozy appeal more to this section of French society.

Bruni has ruled out becoming involved in politics herself - “It’s no, and it will always be no,” she said - but she did promise to support her husband next year when he almost certainly seeks re-election. "It is up to him to choose what he wants to do in 2012,” she said. “But if he does choose to stand, then of course I'll be right there behind him.” ·