PARIS, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Speculation continues over the supposed marital difficulties between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia.

Mrs. Sarkozy fueled divorce rumors when she failed to accompany her husband to Bulgaria this week. She was to accept the country's top honor for her role in negotiating the release of Bulgarian nurses facing the death penalty in Libya, The Guardian reported. Libya accused the nurses of deliberately infected children with HIV.

David Martinon, spokesman for the president, said at a news conference he doesn't comment "on newsroom rumors, especially that one."

The couple separated briefly in 2005 following an alleged affair between Mrs. Sarkozy and an advertising executive, the Telegraph notes.

A friend of the couple told the French radio station, Le Parisien, "they row like all husbands and wives do but nothing more than that."

A divorce would led to Sarkozy being the first French presidential divorcee in modern times.

Mrs. Sarkozy appeared only three times in an official capacity with the French president. She failed to attend a private lunch in August with U.S. President George Bush, complaining of a sore throat. Photographs emerged of her shopping the next day.