Sarkozy erupted over wife's love life talk

PARIS, April 8 (UPI) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in 2008 he should "smash" the face of an editor after a magazine besmirched Sarkozy's wife, Carla Bruni, a biography says.

Sarkozy's alleged threat to editor Franz-Olivier Giesbert came after an article in Le Point news magazine that Geisbert described in detail in his biography, "M. Le President," The Daily Telegraph reported.

Giesbert recalled the president saying, "This article is filth and I should smash your face in" because the article implied his wife was morally loose.

The article, "24 tips to the President ahead of his marriage to Mademoiselle Bruni," had this advice: "Do not introduce your new wife to your sons, Barack Obama or any handsome men."

Bruni had a string of high-profile liaisons with celebrities such as rockers Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton and real estate mogul Donald Trump before marrying Sarkozy more than two years ago.

Giesbert said he asked if Sarkozy was threatening him and said the Sarkozys had no reason to "feel insulted."

"I'm sure you'd blow your top if I wrote that your wife was a whore that everyone had slept with and even wanted to have sex with your children," Giesbert reported the president as replying.

"Never did our magazine suggest Carla was a whore," Giesbert said.

Giesbert said Bruni-Sarkozy defused the situation during a phone call, saying: "Forgive him. But Nicolas is so in love, you understand. He cannot bear that people write this kind of thing about me."