President Nicolas Sarkozy married former model Carla Bruni in a small ceremony at the Elysée Palace in Paris, the mayor who performed the ceremony said.

Mr Sarkozy, 53, and Ms Bruni, 40, have had a whirlwind courtship: they married less than three months after they reportedly first met, and less than four months after Sarkozy divorced his second wife, Cécilia.

"The bride wore white; she was ravishing, as usual," François Lebel, mayor of Paris's eighth arrondissement, told Europe-1 radio. "The groom wasn't bad either."

Under French law, couples must tie the knot before a mayor to make their union official.

Mr Sarkozy could not devote the entire day to celebrations: He was busy with a crisis in Chad, the former French colony in central Africa. As rebels penetrated Chad's capital, he called a meeting at the Elysée Palace and spoke by telephone with Chad's president.

Mr Sarkozy's openness about his private life has surprised many French, accustomed to presidents who keep their love lives under wraps.

At a news conference in January, he evealed that the relationship was "serious" and hinted that wedding plans were in the works. But he refused to reveal the date for a wedding, saying just that France might only learn about the nuptials once they had already taken place.

Former first lady Bernadette Chirac offered her congratulations, adding that it was helpful for a president to have a spouse.

"It's better to have a companion to whom you can say what you need to say and can't say to everyone," she told RTL radio. "You need a punching ball."

Sarkozy and Bruni went public with their relationship during a visit to Disneyland Paris, and they carried out their brief but highly publicized courtship in such places as the ruins of Petra, Jordan. The tabloids even showed the couple at an Egyptian beach resort, Bruni clad in a tiny black bikini, Sarkozy in trunks, gold chain and Ray-Bans.

The President's pproval ratings dropped during their courtship — in part, analysts say, because many older, more traditional voters were put off by the time he was spending on his romance, as well as by his glitzy, jet-setting style.

During their courtship, Mr Sarkozy was nicknamed the "bling-bling president" by the media. He reportedly gave Ms Bruni a pink heart-shaped diamond Dior engagement ring, while she gave him a Swiss-made Patek Philippe watch.

The wedding was the third for Mr Sarkozy, who has three sons. It was the first for Ms Bruni, an Italian-born heiress who had a major modeling career and a well-publicizsd love life. Ms Bruni, now a singer, dated rockers Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, tycoon Donald Trump and actor Vincent Perez. She has a young son, Aurelien, from a relationship with philosophy professor Raphael Enthoven.

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