Carla Bruni has ended speculation that she has secretly wed Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, by telling a French newspaper that the couple are not married - yet.

The Italian supermodel-turned-musician also used the interview with Liberation, a leftwing publication, to put protocol-conscious bureaucrats in Delhi out of their misery by confirming that she will not be accompanying Mr Sarkozy on his official state visit to India in three days' time.

Yesterday Indian officials revealed that they were agonising over whether to treat her as a First Lady, a "First Girlfriend", a simple spouse, a member of the presidential delegation or just as a private visitor.

The answer could determine where she sat at official banquets, whether she was admitted to meetings with the Indian Prime Minister and President, and whether her name should be mentioned in speeches. "It's a little confusing," one Indian official told The Times.

French officials have stoked the tension for weeks by refusing to comment on whether Ms Bruni would accompany the President and in what capacity.

There has been speculation in the Indian media that Mr Sarkozy, 52, and Ms Bruni, 40, might even be intending to announce their engagement during a private visit to the Taj Mahal, the white marble monument to love.

"Sarkozy has put his hosts in a spot. If he were bringing his wife, she would have been given the highest honour. The girlfriend cannot get the same status," Tarun Vijay, the editor of the Panchjanya weekly paper for the Hindu community, said yesterday in an interview with the Calcutta Telegraph.

"This is something unusual and embarrassing, not just for the Indian Government but also for the French. The occasion his coming here for is a very serious one. It is definitely not going to be amusing for the host country."

Today Ms Bruni put them out of their misery, telling Liberation: "I cannot take part in an official trip with the President." The couple were not yet married, she said, although "it is in our plans".

Ms Bruni said that her recording commitments on her third album meant that she could not go away in February and in any case, the couple "hadn't really planned" that she should go to India.

"Also for health reasons it's not good," she added, perhaps referring to the gruelling round of social engagements involved in such trips.

Ms Bruni did not accompany Mr Sarkozy on a recent trip to Saudi Arabia, after a senior Saudi official urged him to respect the country's conservative Islamic culture.

The President's public enthusiasm for his relationship with Ms Bruni, a famous beauty, has captured acres of space in gossip columns around the world since the couple were photographed hand in hand in Egypt last month.

Mr Sarkozy has seemed at times to court publicity, by teasing journalists that when he married Ms Bruni they would learn about it after the event.

"It's serious," said the President, who was widely reported to be lovestruck. His second marriage, to Cecilia Ciganer, ended in divorce in October.

L'Est Republicain newspaper even went so far last week as to report that Mr Sarkozy had probably already wed Ms Bruni at a small, private ceremony in the Elysee Palace, the official Paris residence of French presidents.

The coverage, and Mr Sarkozy's disregard for the French tradition of drawing a discreet veil over the president's private life, has caused his previously buoyant popularity ratings at home to dip. Yesterday it emerged that Francois Fillon, the Prime Minister once derided as "colourless" by Sarko loyalists, is now more popular with the French electorate than his boss.

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