President's new wife pleases the French

More than two-thirds of the French feel good about their new first lady, model-turned-singer Carla Bruni, and a majority feel her music career is "compatible" with her role as the president's wife, according to a new poll to appear on Sunday.

On the downside, 35 percent are not smitten with the 40-year-old spouse of President Nicolas Sarkozy and 42 percent feel she should definitely drop her music career while he is in office, said the IFOP poll to appear in the weekly Journal du Dimanche.

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy (L) and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy visit the archeological site of Carthage, near Tunis, April, 30 2008. More than two-thirds of the French feel good about their new first lady, model-turned-singer Bruni, and a majority feel her music career is "compatible" with her role as the president's wife.

Of those polled, 64 percent felt Bruni, whose picture has been plastered over the French media since she and Sarkozy married in February after a three-month romance, "represented France well abroad."

Sixty percent felt she was "renewing the role of the French First Lady", while over half, 52 percent, felt she was a positive influence on the president -- whose own confidence rating fell to 35 percent late last month.

That poll by IFOP-JDD showed 64 percent of those questioned were "dissatisfied with Sarkozy," whose popularity plummeted earlier this year among voters worried about rising living costs and irked by his high-profile divorce and remarriage to Bruni.

The telephone poll on Bruni questioned 1,005 people this week, as a new book entitled "Carla and Nicolas, the True Story," hit French bookstores.

Written by two French journalists, it quotes Bruni as saying she had "no intention of changing jobs" but that she will not appear on stage while Sarkozy remains president.

Bruni's third album is due for release on July 21 with 14 songs, most written and composed by her.

More than two-thirds of the French feel good about their new first lady, model-turned-singer Bruni, and a majority feel her music career is "compatible" with her role as the president's wife, according to a new poll to appear on Sunday