Bruni almost missed dinner date with destiny 04/02/2008 00:00

Carla Bruni did not want to go to the dinner at which she met French President Nicolas Sarkozy, sparking the lightning romance and their wedding on Saturday

   PARIS, February 3, 2008  - Carla Bruni did not want to go to the dinner at
which she met French President Nicolas Sarkozy, sparking the lightning romance
and their wedding on Saturday, a friend of the couple said.
   The dinner was organised for Sarkozy a couple of weeks after his divorce in
October by top French advertising executive Jacques Seguela.
   "Jacques asked her at the last minute to come over, bring her guitar and
sing a song. She is not right wing and she really did not want to be there,"
the friend told AFP.
   "It was hard work to get her there."
   Bruni has made no secret in the past of her left wing views, even saying in
an interview with a British newspaper just after the French election in May
that she supported Sarkozy's socialist rival Segolene Royal.
   But Seguela has already told French media that it was "love at first sight"
when Sarkozy and Bruni met at the dinner. "They have both since said they are
surprised but Seguela is right," said the friend.
   In an interview with French radio in December, Seguela said: "They had
never seen each other but now I think they will never leave each other again."
   Sarkozy's divorce from his second wife Cecilia had only been announced just
over two weeks before the dinner was organised.
   "Nicolas was feeling very lonely. He said to me: 'Organise a dinner among
friends at your house with your gang, I can't bear being alone in the evening
at the Elysee," Seguela said.
   "I wanted to have a dinner with my left wing friends and so I invited
people who would get a reaction," added the advertising tycoon, a former
advisor to France's past socialist governments.

AFP