SPARE a thought for President Nicolas Sarkozy and his female friends. Under relentless public scrutiny as he wrestles striking railway workers into submission, the newly single French leader has only to wink at a woman for it to spark rumours of romance.

It might do him no harm in a country whose voters are used to presidents taking pride in their powers of seduction. Yet it could complicate Sarkozy’s management of his private life as he looks for a new companion and première dame, or first lady.

Consider the fever of speculation that erupted when the hyperactive 52-year-old “Sarko” bumped into Tinka Milinovic, a 33-year-old Bosnian television presenter and singer, on a visit to Libya in July. One newspaper saw signs of romance, tantalising Bosnian readers with the prospect of a daughter of the Balkan state becoming the next first lady of France.

Last week Milinovic, who had been filming a television programme in Tripoli, disappointed her country by denying in a Belgian newspaper that she was involved with Sarkozy. She had met him, she confessed, in a Libyan hotel lobby, but a bunch of red roses delivered to her room had been sent by some other suitor. Even so, she had received inquiries from all over the world about her “night of passion” with the Frenchman.

“I can laugh about it now,” said Milinovic, who was born in Sarajevo. “The one positive thing in all this – and I’ve just realised it after weeks of hell – is that I have been associated, despite myself, with a positive public figure, the president of one of the most powerful nations and not some retarded mafioso. It is a compliment. I hope President Sarkozy feels the same way.”

From François Mitterrand, who would sometimes visit three mistresses in an evening – he called them his “starter, main course and pudding” – to the chivalrous Jacques Chirac, whose nickname as Paris mayor was “three minutes, shower included”, French presidents have had a habit of manifesting their power through sexual conquest.

Sarkozy is no exception: his reputation as a chaud lapin – literally a “hot rabbit”, or seductive figure – may explain why Cécilia, his companion for more than two decades and wife for the past 11 years, separated from him last month.

After the bitter disappointment of the divorce, things seemed to be going Sarkozy’s way last week.

He made a point of not gloating, but the transport strike that had paralysed France for more than a week was all but over yesterday as talks got under way between the unions and government about reforming the pension system.

The question of who might be sharing the president’s bed, however, was never far from the minds of his citizens. Last week’s Paris Match pointedly published a photograph of the giant bed that the pint-sized president will use on his state visit this weekend to Beijing. His hotel accommodation also included a “first lady’s” suite, the magazine reported, adding that it would probably not be required this time.

Sarkozy’s break-up with Cécilia has attracted as much attention as if he were a rock star. Now that he is the first bachelor to run France since Napoleon was divorced from Josephine, the focus on his domestic arrangements will only intensify.

The mainstream French press, which is mindful of strict privacy laws – and the friendship of some of its patrons with Sarkozy – has yet to become absorbed by the subject. But internet websites were full of chatter last week about Sarkozy’s supposed flirtation with Laurence Ferrari, a glamorous, newly divorced television presenter who interviewed him before and after his election victory in May.

A relationship with a journalist would be nothing new in French politics: Sarkozy’s last girlfriend, when his wife left him for another man in 2005, was a journalist. Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister, and Jean-Louis Borloo, the ecology minister, are married to television journalists.

The trend crosses party lines. François Hol-lande, the Socialist leader, was dumped by Ségolène Royal, the party’s failed presidential candidate, because of an affair with a journalist and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former finance minister and current president of the International Monetary Fund, is married to another media figure.

Talk of a relationship between Sarkozy and a television journalist arose after a supposedly “secret visit” to Morocco on his presidential Airbus at the start of the month.

Before that the speculation had concerned Maud Fontenoy, the yachtswoman, if only because Sarkozy had pinned a medal on her breast and invited her to a rugby match. One can only wonder how France will cope when the president’s busy agenda allows him the time to build a relationship.

Strikes or not, married life might now seem a lot easier.

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