PARIS - Newly divorced President Nicolas Sarkozy curtly told reporters Friday that his private life was not a public matter, while his ex-wife was quoted as saying she felt out of place in the limelight.
A day after their divorce was announced, Sarkozy was still wearing his wedding ring at a European Union summit in Lisbon, Portugal. And he bristled at a question about the divorce.
"I was elected by the French to find solutions to their problems, not to comment on my private life," he said at a news conference. The French perhaps have "more modesty and more discretion, dare I say a touch more of elegance," Sarkozy said, scolding the reporter.
By contrast, his former wife, Cecilia, in an interview published in the regional newspaper L'Est Republicain, spoke frankly about the divorce and the couple's separation in 2005.
"Simply, it was no longer possible," the 49-year-old Cecilia Sarkozy said of her marriage.
"I am someone who likes the shadows, serenity, tranquility," she was quoted as saying. "I had a husband who was a public man, I always knew that, I accompanied him for 20 years ... But me, I think that is not my place. It is no longer my place."
The Sarkozys' tempestuous relationship was well known to the French, including their 2005 split when Cecilia Sarkozy, as she said, "fell in love" with another man.
Sarkozy has at least two foreign trips scheduled in coming weeks: a state visit to Morocco, where he will be accompanied by a friend of his ex-wife, Justice Minister Rachida Dati, who is of Moroccan origin, and a Nov. 6 visit to Washington for his first official meeting with President Bush.
Cecilia Sarkozy was absent when the two leaders met informally this summer at the Maine home of Bush's father.
The divorce announcement coincided with a massive public transport strike that was the first test of Sarkozy's bid to change the mind-set of France and make the country more productive.
The judge granted the Sarkozys joint custody of their only son together, 10-year-old Louis, who will live primarily with his mother. The Sarkozys have two children each from previous marriages.
