France's New First Lady Valerie Trierweiler Vs. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. No Comparison.

Out: Carla. In: Valerie.Move over Carla, there's a new first lady in France. Valerie Trierweiler is next at bat as Premiere Dame now that that Francoise Hollande has beaten Nicolas Sarkozy in the country's presidential election. Like Carla, Valerie is taller, better looking and perhaps more well-known in certain circles, than her partner. But the similarities between the two women end there. Let's compare:





AGE
Carla: 44
Valerie: 47

OCCUPATION
Carla: Singer-songwriter, actress, ex-supermodel.
Valerie: Journalist. She originally wrote about politics for Paris Match, but has switched to arts and culture due to, ahem, a major conflict of interest.

NUMBER OF KIDS
Carla: 2. Her youngest, Guila, was born last year, while Sarkozy was in office.
Valerie: 3.

NICKNAME
Carla: Marie-Antoinette. As wife of the "bling bling president" Bruni-Sarkozy has developed a reputation for living big. When she's not photographed cavorting on exotic beaches with her husband, she's busy dressing in Chanel and trying to adapt the nickname Jackie O. Unfortunately, France felt she was more of cake-eating head-roller than a class act.
Valerie: Rottweiler. She earned the nickname after she slapped a fellow journalist who made a sexist comment. I'm sure the association with a hot-tempered dog also didn't sit well with her. And who can blame her?

MARITAL STATUS
Carla: Married. She wed her husband, outgoing French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008.
Valerie: Domestic partnership. She's been happily unmarried to Hollande since 2006, making her France's first unofficial first lady.

PREVIOUS MARRIAGES
Carla: 0.
Valerie: 2.

PREVIOUS ROCK STAR BOYFRIENDS
Carla: 2. She's been linked to Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger.
Valerie: 0.

ROMANTIC CONTROVERSY
Carla: Her fast-lane courtship of the newly divorced president had her pegged as a "home-wrecker." It didn't help that the father of her first child, Raphael Enthoven was married when they got together. It really didn't help, that she was rumored to have had hooked up with Raphael's father too.
Valerie: Hollande left his wife, the mother of his four children and a fellow French politician, to be with her. That didn't go over too well.

BACKGROUND
Carla: Upper class. Born in Italy and heir to her grandfather's manufacturing company fortune, she went to fancy boarding school in Switzerland and studied art in Paris before becoming a supermodel.
Valerie: Working class. The fifth of six children, born to working class family in the Loire Valley. Her dad was disabled. Her mom was a cashier at a ski rink.

STYLE MANTRA
Carla: Fashion is everything. She was one of the highest paid models in the 90s and posed for luxury brands like Versace, Givenchy, Dior and Lagerfeld. Since becoming a national figurehead, it's all Dior, all the time.
Valerie: Why are you asking, because I'm a woman? She's made it clear in interviews she likes clothes mass-marketed and reasonably priced, okay? Don't expect her life to be about fashion, just because she's first lady.

FIRST LADY BUSINESS
Carla: Bruni-Sarkozy's recording career kicked into high gear while her husband was in office. She released her third album in 2008 and recorded a duet with Harry Connick Jr. in 2009. She also showed up on the soundtrack for Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, in which she also made a cameo.
Valerie: She wants to continue to work as a writer and hopes her partner's plans don't screw up the career she's spent two decades building. "First Lady is not something I've ever dreamed of," she said in a recent interview. "What I'm scared of is losing my liberty. I am not seeking notoriety and I am not seeking to grab the limelight."

FAMOUS QUOTES
Carla: "Monogamy bores me terribly," Bruni-Sarkozy famously said in an interview before her marriage. Nobody let her forget it.
Valerie: When Paris Match, her employer, published a cover story calling her "François Hollande's charming asset," she tweeted "Bravo Paris Match for its sexism on international women's day." She also once clarified via twitter that women are "neither decorative nor bitches." She has my vote.

MICHELLE OBAMA COMPATIBILITY RATING
Carla: 2. Yes, they're both smart dressers raising kids while their husbands are in office, but that does not a friendship make. Bruni-Sarkozy isn't nearly as grounded or cerebral as Michelle. She's also far less discrete, allegedly spilling Michelle's White House secrets. Not cool.
Valerie: 8. The new first lady of France has a lot more in common with our own. They're both career women who made sacrifices for their partner's political aspirations. They're high-achievers in the face of adversity and they're both uninterested in being the center of the attention. It doesn't hurt that they both like a bargain too. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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