French first lady says will keep baby out of view (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) – French first lady Carla Bruni said on Sunday she will keep the baby she is expecting with President Nicolas Sarkozy strictly out of view and not allow any photographs to be shown publicly.

Bruni, who is due to give birth in the autumn, said she did not know whether she was expecting a boy or a girl, but her main aim was to protect the infant from the glare of publicity.

"You don't have a child for the gallery," Bruni told TF1 television in an interview.

"I understand the media interest (but) for children it's not possible. I will do everything to protect this infant and I'll be absolutely rigorous. I will never show photos of this child, I will never expose this child," she said.

Bruni's remarks suggested Sarkozy will shy away from using glossy magazine spreads of a newborn baby to polish his family-man image later this year as he announces a widely expected run at a second term in next year's presidential election.

The conservative is expected to announce his reelection plans in early November, just after France's G20 heads of state summit in Cannes and close to the time Bruni, a former supermodel, is expected to give birth.

Sarkozy's low popularity ratings have inched up during the summer as photos of him relaxing at the beach with the heavily pregnant Bruni gave him a family glow that contrasted with coverage of his erstwhile election rival on the left, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was in New York fighting sex assault charges.

Bruni, 43, and also a singer-songwriter, said she learned her lesson when she let paparazzi snap photos of her son from a former relationship, Aurelien, perched on Sarkozy's shoulders on a trip to Egypt during their whirlwind courtship.

Sarkozy's rapid attachment to the glamorous Bruni on the tails of his 2007 election and just a few months after his separation from his ex-wife Cecilia created a media frenzy.

With many French people critical of a manner they see as too brash and flashy for a head of state, Sarkozy has been at pains in recent months to act in a more austere and presidential way. He and Bruni kept silent about the long-rumored pregnancy until mid-July.

Bruni shed no light on when Sarkozy will announce his election plans, but said she hoped he would be there for the birth of their first child together.

(Reporting by Catherine Bremer)

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New Yorker charged with stalking French actress Cotillard (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard, cast in the next Batman movie, has a role in a real life Gotham crime after a stalker sent threatening messages to her fan site.

Teresa "Terri" Yuan, who lives in Queens, was arrested by the FBI on Thursday last week, said Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn, which also covers Queens.

She was charged with sending threatening messages to a French movie actress, according to a criminal complaint. The actress is Cotillard, a law enforcement source told Reuters on Saturday.

Federal authorities have 30 days to seek a grand jury indictment. Yuan was released Friday on $50,000 bond, authorities said.

"The guilt and sorrow I feel now, I won't feel after it happens," said one of the videos Yuan e-mailed from Queens to fan club servers in New Jersey.

"After it happens I'll feel no regret whatsoever...that's apparently how it feels to be a killer, to be a murderer."

Yuan was accused of e-mailing several threatening videos and messages to the website, including one in which she indicated she knew Cotillard's travel schedule and planned to meet her.

No future court dates have been set in the case, which was heard in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, Nardoza said.

Cotillard, 35, who won the Best Actress Academy Award for her role as Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose," also appeared in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris," "Inception" and is cast in the upcoming Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises."

Yuan's lawyer, Michael Schneider, declined to comment.

(Reporting by Jessica Dye; Writing by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by David Bailey)

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Bollywood star delays French award due to blasts (AFP)

NEW DELHI (AFP) – Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan asked for a delay in being honoured for her work promoting cinema ties between India and France because of the Mumbai blasts, the French embassy said Friday.

The actress, who is pregnant with her first child, had been due to be made a knight of France's order of arts and letters at a ceremony in New Delhi on Wednesday.

But the former Miss World asked for the event to be postponed after three explosions shook India's financial hub during earlier in the day, killing 17 people and injuring more than 130.

The 37-year-old actress, who lives in Mumbai, asked for the ceremony to be held at a later date out of "solidarity and sympathy" with the victims of the blast, an embassy official said.

The award was to have been presented in "recognition of her contribution to the world of cinema and to the development of Franco-Indian co-operation in the film industry", the embassy said.

Rai Bachchan, who won the Miss World title in 1994, has starred in more than 40 Hindi-language films and a number of English-language films, including the Steve Martin remake of the "Pink Panther".

She is married to leading actor and producer Abhishek Bachchan, 35, whose father Amitabh, is one of Bollywood's biggest stars.

Amitabh Bachchan was given France's highest civilian award, the Legion of Honour, in 2007.

No new date for the the ceremony for Rai Bachchan to receive the French honour has been announced.

Indian investigators are scrambling to identify who was behind the blasts which came just two-and-a-half years after Mumbai was still emerging from the 2008 attacks by Pakistani Islamist militants that killed 166 people in 2008.

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US artist Cy Twombly dies in Rome: French gallery (AFP)

MARSEILLE (AFP) – US artist Cy Twombly has died in a hospital in Rome, at age 83, the director of the Lambert collection in southern France told AFP.

The artist, who was living in Italy and had suffered with cancer for several years, was hospitalised a few days ago, according to Eric Mezil.

An exposition of his photographs opened last month at the Lambert collection in Avignon.

Mezil, who knew Twombly for 20 years, said he had bought a train ticket to visit him next week.

He last saw him in May, he added, when the artist "was doing fine."

A friend of fellow US artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, Twombly had lived in Italy for 50 years in a town between Rome and Naples.

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French court says Bettencourt guardian request invalid (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) – France's Appeals Court ruled on Monday that a request to appoint a guardian to oversee the business affairs of L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt was invalid, despite a recommendation in favor by doctors.

The court found that the request for a guardian by Francoise Meyers-Bettencourt, the daughter of the 88-year-old billionaire and key L'Oreal shareholder, could not be acted upon because she had withdrawn it during a legal truce.

The ruling on a technicality leaves open the question of whether there are valid grounds for appointing a guardian to supervise Bettencourt, ranked by Forbes as the world's 15th-richest person.

Mother and daughter declared a truce in their long-running legal feud in December, during which Meyers-Bettencourt withdrew her request to have her mother placed under the supervision of a guardian and the two made a show of unity.

But the dispute has since reignited, with Bettencourt telling weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche recently that her daughter needed to seek psychological help.

Doctors advised appointing a guardian last week, saying Bettencourt was suffering a decline in her mental faculties.

But the court ruled that it could not act on that request given that the case which sparked the medical examination in the first place was dropped during the short-lived truce.

Meyers-Bettencourt made a ward-of-court application in 2010, alleging that her mother was being swindled by a friend, society photographer Francois-Marie Banier. Meyers-Bettencourt has since withdrawn the application regarding Banier, legal sources said.

In December, mother and daughter said they had buried the hatchet, ending a three-year estrangement. But their fight flared up again last week when Meyers-Bettencourt said her mother continued to be manipulated by members of her entourage.

The Bettencourts hold a stake of nearly 31 percent in L'Oreal and the dispute has raised questions over the long-term solidity of the family as a core shareholder of the cosmetics giant. The case also sparked a political funding investigation last year.

(Reporting by Thierry Leveque, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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French actor 'arrested for mooning in Cannes' (AFP)

CANNES, France (AFP) – Police arrested a French actor for baring his bottom to fans when they asked to take a photograph of him in the movie festival town of Cannes, media and an official said Monday.

Sami Naceri, 49, star of the hit television series "Taxi", was arrested on Sunday and is in police custody, "accused of displaying an intimate part of his anatomy" in public, said the police official, who asked not to be named.

Police would not describe the offence in detail but the regional newspaper Nice Matin reported that Naceri dropped his trousers and bared his buttocks to a group of young people who asked him for a photo on the Cannes seafront.

The actor has had several run-ins with the law and last month was convicted of a knife attack in 2009. Just last week he was briefly detained in Cannes for insulting police.

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French star Cotillard has baby boy (AFP)

PARIS (AFP) – French Hollywood star Marion Cotillard has given birth to her first child, a boy whom she named Marcel after the lover of her greatest film role, the singer Edith Piaf, her agent said Friday.

"Marion Cotillard gave birth yesterday in Paris," a spokesperson for the Adequat artists' agency told AFP. "It is a little boy named Marcel. Everything went well."

The agency said the baby boy was named after Marcel Cerdan, a boxer who was the great love of Piaf, as portrayed in the 2007 biopic "La Vie en Rose." Cotillard, 35, won a best actress Oscar for her performance as Piaf.

Baby Marcel's father is the French actor and director Guillaume Canet.

The birth kept Cotillard away from the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival where she appeared on screen last week in US director Woody Allen's new movie, "Midnight in Paris."

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French actress Clemence Poesy poised for stardom (Reuters)

CANNES, France (Hollywood Reporter) – From "Gossip Girl" on the Upper East Side to Peasant girl from Eastern France, French actress Clemence Poesy has crossed genres, languages and territories in her career.

Now, 19-year-old actress is at the Festival de Cannes with a divine role as Joan of Arc in Philippe Ramos' Director's Fortnight title "The Silence of Joan."

The film takes place in 1430 and follows the maid of Orleans during the last year of her life as she is captured and imprisoned, miraculously survives a fall from a tower and deals with the many men surrounding her, played by an all-star male Gallic cast including Thierry Fremont, Mathieu Amalric, Liam Cunningham and Jean-Francois Stevenin.

So did Poesy relate to the heroine known for hearing voices from God and leading the French army to victory during the 100 years war?

"I can't really relate to a young prophetess who was leading armies at a time where women weren't allowed to have any kind of social importance," she said. "While we were shooting, I didn't relate to Joan of Arc personally as much as I related to the Joan we were trying to portray and whose story we were telling. It was a long process that I approached with different references and different crafts."

For the film's director, Ramos, Poesy was an obvious choice for the role.

"I was looking for someone with a divine presence and Clemence had the spark," Ramos said. "Clemence has a sense of mystery about her. She has a very particular beauty that's childlike and sensual at the same time she's full of contrasts."

Poesy's film choices also diverge. "I like being between French films and international projects it feels like an amazing opportunity to always keep learning and discovering and it also gives me a lot of freedom. I'd love for things to keep going this way. Every project is different, every director is different. It changes all the time which is what's so great about it."

After Joan, Poesy will leave her native tongue to explore more English language roles including Rupert Goold's upcoming adaptation of Richard II opposite Ben Winshaw that starts shooting this month.

With the offers piling in, Poesy has managed to find a balance between Hollywood blockbusters and French auteur cinema like The Silence of Joan. "I just go with what feels right at the time and very often it's in reaction with what I've just done," she said. "I tend to want to act in English after a French film, make a small film after a big one, something fun after something dark. I like experimenting and I try to do things that are different from one another," she explained.

As her English-language roles multiply, the French accented actress may just be poised to rival Hollywood's leading ladies.

"I have a lot of respect and admiration for someone like Cate Blanchett, find Emma Thompson wonderful, Meryl Streep inspiring, Juliette Binoche full of light and Catherine Deneuve incredible," she said.

Based on the way her career is going, Poesy, whose last name means "poetry" in French, may just join the elegant actresses in the international starlette circle.

Ramos said: "She's a beautiful young actress, but not archetypal it's her personality and talent combined with her unique beauty that sets her apart."

And, did we mention, she sings too?

"Oh it's a small thing really," the actress says of her collaboration on a duet with Miles Kane that will be on his first solo album. "I like the song, I loved recording it and discovering a new way to tell stories."

Poesy will also be saying goodbye to Hogwarts as her role in the "Harry Potter" franchise comes to an end this year.

"It's always moving to see a story come to an end, but I always thought the strength of "Harry Potter" was in the fact that people knew from the start that it would end after seven books/films, so it's a little bit like life we appreciate it because we know it's not there forever," she said. "I think it's a good thing that it's finishing while it's still magical."

While Poesy will be radiating divine light in Joan, the actress opts to stay out of the spotlight in her home country and abroad.

"Frankly, I think most of all, no one really cares about my private life. I just try to keep the two separated, always keeping in mind that there are things, precious things, that can just be mine and I don't have to share with anyone else but the people I love."

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

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French, Irish singers on the rise at Eurovision (AP)

BERLIN – A pair of wildly coiffed Irish twins and a French opera singer are among the favorites to prevent German pop princess Lena Meyer-Landruth from defending her title at the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend.

More than 120 million viewers from Israel to Ireland are expected to tune in Saturday night to watch 25 finalists belt out ballads and bubblegum pop in the hope of wresting the title from Lena.

The 19-year-old German, who won the 2010 competition by a wide margin in the Norwegian capital Oslo with dance number "Satellite," is hoping the audience will fall for her sultry "Taken By A Stranger" in the final, being held in the western city of Duesseldorf.

The contest — held annually since 1951 — is known for over-the-top exuberance in costumes, lighting and set design. The winner is determined by the votes of national judges panels and televoters in participating countries. Fans cannot vote for their own nation.

Lena faces stiff competition this year. French tenor Amaury Vassili topped British bookmakers' odds on Friday, with his dramatic, operatic track "Sognu," sung in Corsican.

A pair of 19-year old Irish twins — John and Edward Grimes, performing under the name "Jedward" — were the second favorite. Known for their quiffy blonde hair, they will perform the upbeat song "Lipstick," which is also one of Lena's favorites.

"I like the Irish boys, and I was the one who told everyone that they are going to be so great," she told reporters ahead of the competition.

Lena and Jedward were tied atop Google's predictor Friday afternoon, having continually swapped first and second place in the vote-generated forecaster over the past few weeks. Google has accurately predicted the past two year's winners by soliciting votes ahead of the final.

The contest, however, is not without controversy. In the last days, questions and doubts have come up regarding the lyrics of the Belarusian entry for the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest. Today, BTRC has announced that the lyrics of the song have been officially changed.

Finalists were selected from the pool of 38 contestants in semifinal rounds held on Tuesday and Thursday in the Duesseldorf Arena, where the final will also be staged.

The venue can hold up to 24,000 spectators, even with the elaborate stage set up. Organizers estimate the production will cost (EURO)12 million ($17 million).

The annual song competition has launched several European pop music careers — most famously, Abba.

Ireland holds the record for the most overall wins, with seven titles.

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French first lady skips Cannes amid pregnancy rumor (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) – France's First Lady Carla Bruni said on Tuesday she had canceled a red-carpet appearance at the Cannes film festival because of "personal reasons," feeding rumors that she might be pregnant.

Bruni, a former supermodel who married French President Nicolas Sarkozy three years ago, played a small role in U.S. director Woody Allen's movie "Midnight in Paris" which opens this year's festival on France's Cote d'Azur.

Bruni said she would not be able to attend Wednesday's opening for both personal and professional reasons.

In recent weeks, Bruni has fanned media rumors that she is expecting by evading questions and saying that she does not want to talk because she has something to protect.

When asked on RTL radio, she again declined to comment, saying that it was a "private question."

"I want to protect my private and family life," said Bruni, who has often stated she would like to have a child with Sarkozy, who she married after he became president in 2007.

A pregnancy would be a public relations boon for the first couple as Sarkozy struggles to revive his sagging popularity ratings a year ahead of a presidential election.

Political commentators say a pregnancy could boost the image of the presidential couple among the French, many of whom dislike Sarkozy's flashy image and found his public courtship of Bruni, who has launched a career as a pop singer, in bad taste.

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; editing by Andrew Heavens)

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French ads have fun with Carla Bruni baby rumour (AFP)

PARIS (AFP) – French advertising agencies are seeking to exploit a wave of gossip about First Lady Carla Bruni's rumoured pregnancy, poking gentle fun at a story she has refused to confirm or deny.

The 43-year-old supermodel-turned-singer married President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008 and has since given birth to an album of self-penned ballads but no new heir -- despite repeated rumours.

With Sarkozy languishing in the opinion polls and facing a tough battle for re-election next May, speculation is again rife that the Italian-born heiress may be carrying a pre-poll surprise.

Bruni herself did nothing to slow the rumour mill last week when she told an invited panel of readers of Le Parisien newspaper that her "lips are, in a sense, sealed" when asked about a pregnancy.

The French press is traditionally more respectful of the private life of public figures than its British or US counterparts, but that has not stopped advertisers from profiting from the buzz.

"So, Carla, do you feel like eating strawberries, or not?" asked a mother's wear firm in the pages of Liberation, referring to the popular theory that expectant mothers crave soft fruit.

Meanwhile, a car firm marketing a new minivan asked: "Dear Madame Bruni, would you perhaps be in the market for a family sized car?"

Sarkozy, 56, has three sons from previous marriages, and Bruni a 10-year-old son with the philosopher Raphael Enthoven.

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French opera singer Jane Rhodes dies (AFP)

PARIS (AFP) – French-born opera singer Jane Rhodes, famous for her role as the singing gypsy Carmen, died Saturday, her husband told AFP. She was 82 years old.

Rhodes died in a Paris hospital where she was being treated for a neurological illness.

Born in 1929 in Paris, Rhodes made her opera debut at 25, with a singing voice ranging from the powerful dramatic soprano to the higher mezzo-soprano.

"Her most famous role was undoubtedly Carmen at the Garnier opera house in Paris where I myself was a conductor, in November 1959, and in the presence of (former World War II leader and French president) General (Charles) de Gaulle," said her husband, the conductor Roberto Benzi.

With her good looks, Rhodes gained fame for her role as Carmen, the irresistible and fiery character in George Bizet's opera, as well as Marguerite in Hector Berlioz's "The Damnation of Faust".

She also sang Giacomo Puccini's Tosca and Richard Strauss's Salome.

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