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PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy has gone on the offensive against the French media in a bitter response to scrutiny of his whirlwind romance and marriage with former model Carla Bruni.
In an act with no precedent in French history, the 53-year-old head of state has filed suit under criminal law against the left-leaning magazine Le Nouvel Observateur. If Sarkozy wins, its editor could face three years in jail.
In an item on its website, Le Nouvel Observateur had said that, a week before his marriage on February 2, Sarkozy sent a text message to his ex-wife Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz.
"If you come back, I'll call everything off," Sarkozy said in his SMS, to which Cecilia did not reply.
Sarkozy opted for a criminal suit to gain swift redress and inflict a lesson, said his lawyer, Thierry Herzog.
The suit accuses Le Nouvel Observateur of "falsification and use and handling of false documents", which could carry a fine of €45,000 ($90,000) and a three-year jail term for the author, in this case editor Airy Routier.
"A libel case can run for weeks. After six months, there's still no outcome, and the author of the article will face a maximum fine of 12,000 euros ($$24,000)," Herzog said. "( ... ) Let's be clear, what we want is to put a stop to this business."
"It's probably the first time that a head of state has filed a criminal complaint against the press, but then it's also the first time that a head of state has been so badly treated."
Routier stands by the report and says the "baroque" lawsuit "is aimed at cowing journalists".
Sarkozy, elected in May, was initially treated deferentially by the mainstream media.
Journalists were mindful of his reputation, when Interior Minister, for stifling accounts of his stormy 11-year marriage. But, as tradition demanded, they were also deferential to a head of state and ignored details of his private life. Cracks in the relationship began to appear when Sarkozy sought to patch up his marriage by giving Cecilia a role in public life. The decision was disastrous, for Cecilia cried off her appointments and instead was seen shopping.
The couple had a quickie divorce in October, and a month later Sarkozy met Bruni, a 40-year-old former model and singer with a colourful sexual past. She became Mrs Sarkozy III in a secretive private ceremony at the Elysee presidential palace.
Editors are now running big pictures and stories on Sarkozy, Cecilia and Carla, although with nothing like the intrusiveness or aggressiveness of, say, Britain's tabloid media.
They argue that Sarkozy's personal life is fair game, saying that his photo ops with both spouses, his children and millionaire friends are props for political showmanship.
"Newspaper editors today think it's right to treat Nicolas Sarkozy like the Americans treat Britney Spears, and try to provoke him into making a mistake," said Jean Guisnel, a veteran journalist at Le Point magazine.
"Before, they feared him, today they are lynching him. The humiliated are taking revenge."
One of Sarkozy's closest allies, Human Rights Minister Rama Yade, last week lashed the press for being "vultures which have smelt the scent of their prey, which plunge on him and hound him. It's literally a manhunt."
Obsessed that the media are to blame for his record slump in the opinion polls, Sarkozy regularly sounds off about individual journalists at his morning meeting with his 12 closest advisers, said L'Express.
"The culprits are easy to find - those sons of bitches in the media. It's a classic tactic when things go against you," the conservative weekly said.
"How do you prove the birds of ill omen are wrong? True to custom, Nicolas Sarkozy knows only one tactic, to counter-attack," said the leftwing daily Liberation.
Two days before the new lawsuit, Sarkozy and Bruni won a case against the low-cost airline Ryanair for illegally using their photo in an advertisement. The ad featured a balloon coming out of Bruni's mouth, saying "With Ryanair, all my family can come to my wedding." Sarkozy was awarded a symbolic one euro, which was what he had sought, and Bruni was awarded 60,000 euros, compared with her demand of 500,000 euros. She has pledged the money to charity.
Sarkozy's case against Le Nouvel Observateur is a high-risk strategy.
If investigators are impartial - not a guaranteed thing in France when it comes to political cases - they could call on Sarkozy or his ex-wife to hand over their mobile phones for forensic scrutiny or subpoena records at Sarkozy's phone company.
Herzog, though, said that the onus would be on the magazine to prove that its story was true.
And if the case comes to trial, Sarkozy, who portrays himself as a victim of the media, could look thuggish if its editor is jailed.
Press watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres fears a dangerous legal precedent, as under criminal law the journalist would be required to reveal his sources.
"This is not the case under civil law," with libel, it noted.
