Referring to "informed sources in the Elysee Palace" Le Nouvel Observateur reported that the divorce would be announced later in the day, while La Tribune offered the opinion that the rumors would be confirmed on Wednesday.
The rumors were only reinforced by reports that Cecelia Sarkozy would not allegedly accompany her husband on his official visit to Morocco next week. The Observer said the French president's wife was currently on a vacation at La Reserve hotel on Lake Geneva. The Sarkozys were last seen together on July 14, when France celebrated Bastille Day.
At the said celebrations, Cecilia reportedly rejected her husband's attempt to hold her hand. Nor did she accompany Sarkozy on his subsequent visit to Sofia. Cecilia's unexpected departure from the recent G8 summit in Heiligendamm was also believed to be meaningful.
Besieged by journalists, Elysee spokesman David Martinon, who is on friendly terms with both the husband and wife, said last week: "I never comment on rumors in the press."
Sarkozy's relationship with his second wife has been in the media's limelight ever since their marriage in October 1996.
In May 2005, the Swiss newspaper Le Matin revealed that Cecilia had left Sarkozy for his friend French-Moroccan national Richard Attias, who heads the Publicis Events Worldwide agency in New York. Although Sarkozy later sued the paper, there were also widespread rumors that he himself had had an affair with a female journalist.
