I GAVE AN IMAGE OF SILENCE
I suddenly wonder if her apathy today is genuine (‘Democracy is the right to vote but it’s also the right not to vote, right? I live in a bubble’) or just another way of making sure she avoids those headlines, even now. As she says later of her time as First Lady, ‘I gave an image of silence. That was more about the image than the real person that I am.’
We meet at an expensive but discreet restaurant in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, close to her home. Carla, 49, arrives with a bodyguard in tow: ‘He’s from my husband’s team, but sometimes when I go to public places he comes with me.’ Otherwise, she’s warm and friendly, dressed in low-key black leggings and a beige wool polo neck. Less low-key are our fellow diners, whose reactions range from smiling politely at her or doing a double-take. They have every reason to gawp: Carla’s story is the equivalent of Kate Moss swapping modelling to write genuinely well-received music, before moving into 10 Downing Street as David Cameron’s wife, three months after they met. ‘Life is full of surprises,’ says Carla, who has a six-year-old daughter, Giulia, with Sarkozy. ‘I’m very lucky. I have a little talent, but I’ve always felt luck more than anything else.’
She was happy to leave politics, but it was as an ‘honour’ to do ‘cool’ humanitarian work. She’s met France’s current First Lady, Brigitte Macron, and thinks she’s ‘very nice’. She’s still fond of Michelle Obama, but seems nonplussed when I draw a parallel with Melania Trump: another former model thrust into politics because of her husband. ‘I’ve never met her. She’s pretty,’ is about all she has to say on ‘Madame Trump’.
We’re supposed to be discussing her visit to London this week to play her first ever concert in the capital. It follows the release of her most recent album, French Touch, a selection of 11 covers including Lou Reed’s Perfect Day and Audrey Hepburn’s Moon River. She describes it as ‘a sweet album to listen to, when you need to be cosy’, and insists she just chose songs she liked ‘ by ear’ from a selection of 100 tracks with the producer David Foster (Gigi and Bella’s former stepdad, who has also worked with J-LO, Madonna and Barbra Streisand). Again, I’m disinclined to believe her: its opening track is a cover of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence, which can hardly be a coincidence.
To my surprise, she seems almost reluctant to talk about her music. When I ask if she was nervous about releasing a covers album, she responds, ‘I never quite think about people’s judgement, otherwise I wouldn’t have done anything in my life.’ I then enquire why it’s taken so long for her to come to London, to which she responds flatly, ‘Probably because my music was so French. That was probably the reason.’ In addition to her new album, she made a triumphant return to the catwalk earlier this year in that Versace show in Milan alongside her good friend Naomi Campbell. But she rails against the idea that this is her comeback year after her time at the Elysée. ‘How nice! I don’t know where I was gone though.’
She seems happier talking about things that aren’t music; almost any other thing, in fact. Among her many meanderings is a discussion about who my outfit is ‘ by’ (I tell her it’s ‘from’ Topshop), whether I’m a natural blonde, her skin (‘I’m almost 50, I shouldn’t be getting pimples!’) and the endless stream of sexual harassment accusations in the media.
‘I was probably very lucky because it never happened to me,’ she says. ‘Everyone in fashion was very kind when I was modelling. I worked a lot with Terry Richardson and he never tried anything with me.
‘My mother’s generation was completely different. She was born in 1920. When she was a child, she learned piano with this guy who would take out his penis. Then when my sister was a kid, she was on a boat and a sailor put his hand in her swimsuit. It was quite traumatic. She told my mum who just said, “It happens to everyone! Remember my piano teacher!” The good thing about our modern time is that these things can’t happen without being at least revealed and punished.’
Talking to her is an alluring experience. Her voice is rich and velvety and her French accent really quite melodic. She is unequivocally beautiful, with razorsharp cheekbones. She has a wicked and booming laugh and I get the impression she’s itching to be
mischievous, to stop talking about music and work and politics and instead just chat and laugh while she vapes away. Today her flavour is mint and eucalyptus. ‘Do you want to try it?’ she asks.
She once provoked much outrage after proclaiming she wasn’t an ‘active feminist’ during an interview. Earlier this year, she clarified her position, saying ‘I am a feminist, but not from wearing a T-shirt.’ In an age where fashion is oversaturated with Dior-inspired ‘feminist’ slogan T-shirts, I tell her just how happy I was to see her say that.
She looks me dead in the eye. ‘ What’s increasing is the importance of the image. But an image is flat. It has no blood. It has no heart. I know that, because I’ve been dealing with my image since I was 20 years old.
‘Maybe they’re making all these T-shirts because everything is related to an image. But images shouldn’t come before everything you do: they should be the result.’
Feminism, to Carla, is about more than an image: it’s a ‘fight. In our country, you get some equality, but that’s not the case for everyone else. In some countries women are not considered, others are imprisoned’. When I point out that women in those countries probably make the T-shirts, she laughs raucously. ‘A very good point.’
As our interview draws to an end, she calls over the waiter and asks for the bill in undeniably seductive French before turning to me in mock outrage: ‘He’s young enough to be my grandson!’ She takes out her wallet and insists on paying, despite my protestations. ‘Come on! I’m from Paris! You’re the guest.’
I expect it’s time to go, so I grab my bag. But Carla isn’t ready just yet. She wants to know everything; about my family and love life, what my sister does for a living. She in turns tells me about her ‘man’s’ passion for cycling around the hills of their South of France home. He’s growing grey, which she loves. She wonders if she looks ‘terrible’ – her 16-year-old son, Aurélien, from a former relationship with French philosopher Raphaël Enthoven – is ill and she worries she might also have a fever. Then, out of nowhere, she’s impersonating Liam Gallagher in a recent interview, shrieking, ‘I don’t fooking care, no one fooking cares,’ in the middle of this very classy restaurant.
Finally, she gets up to leave, shaking my hand firmly before climbing into the front seat of a blacked-out car, her security guard driving her away.
The French public rather mocked Nicolas Sarkozy when he married Carla just three months into their whirlwind romance. After an hour and a half in her company, I’m not sure how he managed to wait so long.
‘ French Touch’ is out now on Decca Records. Carla plays the Union Chapel in London’s Islington on 9 December; see carlabruni.com for tickets