The miracle of Cecilia’

PARIS — She stepped onto the hot airport tarmac under the blazing Balkan sun last week into her first international triumph as the first lady of France.

With her were five Bulgarian medical workers and a Palestinian doctor who had been held for more than eight years in Libyan jails under a sentence of death for a crime that few believe they committed. By luck or exceptionally favorable circumstances, Cecilia Sarkozy had managed to see Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi and extricate the six from their death trap. They arrived with her in Sofia, Bulgaria, aboard the official plane of the president of France.

The return was played out with tears, embraces and applause while Mrs. Sarkozy stood back, slim and elegant in a simple white blouse. And then the French media exploded with a torrent of praise.

It was “the miracle of Cecilia,” who “tore the Bulgarian nurses from the jaws of death.” She was hailed as “a perfect mother and a free woman who defied protocol.”

There was, of course, some grumbling from European Union diplomats in Brussels, who accused Mrs. Sarkozy of jumping in to steal the glory after they had worked on the deal for months.

But either way, as the conservative French daily Le Figaro noted, by sending his wife on such a mission, the new French president had “swept aside the rules.”

And those who know the first lady say that, at the side of her husband, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was elected in May, Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz Sarkozy can be expected to continue to sweep aside rules and protocol.

No presidential wife in modern France has attracted so much attention as the new hostess in the elegant Elysee Palace, built in the 18th century by King Louis XV for the Marquise de Pompadour. Cecilia Sarkozy and her husband have yet to move into the living quarters of the palace, preferring their recently rented large apartment in the posh Neuilly area of Paris.

The Elysee, Mrs. Sarkozy has told friends, is hardly suitable for a family of seven. The couple, who married in 1996, have had only one child together but each has two more from previous marriages.

Mr. Sarkozy, at that time the mayor of Neuilly, met his wife while presiding over her marriage to her first husband, a television host. Mrs. Sarkozy later left her husband for the future president, divorcing the first husband only a year later.

Such marital intrigues might have sunk an American presidential candidate but seem to carry little weight in France, where voters seem unconcerned about divorces or even an occasional “fling” before or between marriages.

Catherine Nay, a Sarkozy biographer, mentions a well-known fashion photographer, 20 years Mrs. Sarkozy’s senior, whom at one point she followed around the world.

Two years ago, Mrs. Sarkozy reportedly left her husband, returning only while he was in the thick of his presidential campaign. She left again for New York just before the decisive second round of the vote, leaving many in the media to speculate whether she would ever serve as first lady.

One friend of Mrs. Sarkozy describes her as “delicate, but with an internal strength and extreme sensibility.” To another woman of her acquaintance, “She can be a wonderful friend but, the minute you annoy her, she is merciless.”

Those who voted for Mr. Sarkozy had little reason to suspect they would be getting such a forceful first lady. At the age of 49, she is still a stunning woman with a bob of thick, dark hair and penetrating blue eyes.

She proclaims her independence in dress and behavior, likes to say she is “not politically correct,” does not carry handbags and, at 5-foot-10, wears flat shoes in order not to tower over the compact frame of her husband.

Her predecessors at the Elysee Palace pursued various social or political aims and espoused various causes. Some sponsored campaigns for charities or set up foundations in their names.

So far, Mrs. Sarkozy has rarely used her assigned office, last occupied by Bernadette Chirac, wife of former President Jacques Chirac, and staffed by an assistant and a secretary. She usually arrives unannounced in her small black compact car, eschewing the official car. Apparently, she has not yet decided on her new field of interest.

Despite her penchant for informality, she dazzled the cream of international political society at the June summit of industrial nations in Heiligendamm, Germany, where she appeared sublime in a white Saint Laurent pantsuit, prompting the Italian daily Corriere della Sera to headline “Cecilia stole the show.”

And then she ostentatiously skipped a dinner organized for the wives, claiming the 20th birthday of one of her daughters, Jeanne-Marie, was more important.

To French media speculation whether she is going to be “a Jackie Kennedy or Hillary Clinton,” she answers, “I am myself.”

She likes intimate evenings to the sound of guitar, bicycling, jogging and sailing. She also enjoys the occasional official trip — although lately she has pronounced herself bored by some travel.

Mr. Sarkozy says he regularly discusses state affairs with his wife and even asks her counsel. Mrs. Sarkozy was educated in the Roman Catholic convent school of the Sisters of the Assumption in Paris, briefly studied law and ended up as a fashion model for Schiaparelli.

She speaks English — apparently even to her daughters — and has a working knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese.

The first couple is a prominent example of the French ethnic “melting pot.” Mr. Sarkozy’s father is a Hungarian aristocrat while his mother descends from Greek Jews in Salonika who converted to Catholicism.

Mrs. Sarkozy’s father, a Romanian Jew who also had lived in Russia, arrived in France at the start of World War II and was naturalized in 1955. Her Spanish mother, Teresita Albeniz, claims ancestry that includes a well-known pianist and Belgian aristocrats. The couple appear to have no French ancestors.