PARIS - Two months after his divorce, is President Nicolas Sarkozy back on the dating scene?
Sarkozy was spotted at Disneyland Paris last weekend with supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni, who once dated Mick Jagger and Donald Trump.
The president's office would not comment, but reports speculated the very public appearance -- in a crowded theme park, with paparazzi on their trail -- amounted to an announcement that they are together.
Le Figaro, a newspaper seen as close to the conservative president, ran a front-page image Monday of the blue-eyed Bruni over the headline "Carla Bruni: The President's Girlfriend." Liberation newspaper's headline read, "Sarkozy-Bruni, a Disney fairy tale."
Colombe Pringle, director of Point de Vue magazine, said she believes Sarkozy and Bruni's appearance was calculated. "If you go to Disneyland to see the parade, that means you want people to know about it," Pringle said.
Most members of Sarkozy's government declined to say anything about Sarkozy's love life, although Housing Minister Christine Boutin remarked, "If the president is happy, so much the better."
When Sarkozy and Bruni, an Italian-born French citizen, visited the theme park on Saturday, photographers openly snapped the pair, and they seemed at ease with the attention, the respected newsweekly L'Express said.
The pair appeared to be accompanied by one or more children. Sarkozy, 52, has two grown sons from his first marriage and one school-age son from a second marriage that ended two months ago. The 39-year-old Bruni also has a young son. Point de Vue said it had Bruni's permission to run the photos, provided the children's faces were blurred.
Christophe Barbier, editor of L'Express, said he called Bruni, whom he described as a friend, before going public with the story.
"She confirmed the relationship," he told LCI television.
Pascal Rostain, a photographer who covered the pair, said he knows Bruni and that "she is living a true love story, and the president is, too."
"They have nothing to hide," he told LCI. Bruni's agent declined to comment.
Bruni, a longtime model with a porcelain complexion, won critical and public acclaim for her first folk album in 2003, singing in a raspy, whispery voice.
She has dated a range of famous men: Besides Jagger and Trump, she has also reportedly been linked to singer Eric Clapton and actor Vincent Perez.
Sarkozy has often put his private and family life on display for the media. After his May election, he sent his then-wife, Cecilia, on a high-profile trip to Libya to free Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor imprisoned there.
He bristled, however, at intense media interest in the end of his tempestuous relationship with Cecilia. The couple divorced in October.
The coverage of Sarkozy's divorce -- and the buzz about his sighting with Bruni -- was a sign that France's media is losing its traditional reticence about reporting on politicians' love lives, while the public is growing more curious.
In the past, French politicians kept their private lives remote: the late President Francois Mitterrand, for example, kept the existence of his mistress and illegitimate daughter a secret throughout most of his 1981-95 presidency.
By contrast, Sarkozy has used the ups and downs of his private life to make him seem more accessible, said Denis Muzet, president of the Mediascopie media think tank.
Showing up at Disneyland with Bruni "is a way of saying to the French, 'You see, I have emotions, I have moments of happiness, too, I'm going to have a merry Christmas,'" he said.
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Associated Press writers Jenny Barchfield and Angela Doland contributed to this report.
