French President, Wife Divorce

Nicolas and Cecilia Sarkozy split for a few months in 2005, and she had seemed ill at ease as first lady since her husband's election in May. She did not cast a ballot in the runoff, and has rarely appeared with her husband in public recently.

Her one political venture came back to sting her: She raised her profile dramatically during a July mission to seek the release of five Bulgarian medical workers and a Palestinian doctor jailed in Libya. The stunned French media questioned her diplomatic credentials, and parliament is investigating arms deals signed soon after the release.

"She was shaken, murdered, wounded by the controversy," Isabelle Balkany, a friend of the couple, told France Inter radio.

"Cecilia is a woman of conviction who needs to do things, feel useful. She knew that she would have trouble tolerating the conventional side" of being a president's wife, she said.

Balkany predicted the divorce would not affect the president's job.

Even if he is "affected to his depths" by the "painful" decision, she said, "I sincerely think that it will have absolutely no impact on his mission as chief of state."