Who has been juggling with Carla's figures?

No it's not a story about unsubstantiated tittle-tattle surrounding the possibility of the patter of tiny feet at the Elysée palace, the official residence of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Rumours that by the way have been circling for the best part of this year.

Instead it's the mystery surrounding the exact record sales of the latest album by the country's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

Before you read any further, you might want to grab something to drink, don a pair of dark glasses or clear your mind completely, because there's a fair bit of (conflicting) number crunching to follow, and it could leave you with something of a headache. You have been warned.

You may remember Bruni-Sarkozy's latest album "Comme si de rien n'etait" was released simultaneously in France, Britain and Germany on July 11 and later throughout the rest of Europe and the United States.

After just one week it had knocked the new album from the British band, Coldplay, off the number one spot here in France according to the Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique (SNEP), the music industry group that tracks record sales here, although it didn't issue exact numbers.

Instead we had to rely on figures supplied by the singer's record company, Naïve, which maintained that 14,000 copies had been sold in that first week.

Now that same company is insisting that Bruni-Sarkozy's album has sold a whopping 300,000 copies worldwide with 160,000 in France alone, thus ensuring gold status in sales.

But hang about a mo'. What does SNEP have to say about all of this?

Well, according to its figures, reported in the national daily Le Parisien, sales are in fact far lower in France - at 80,657 to be precise. Quite a disparity in numbers by anyone's reckoning.

But while SNEP calculates its tally on copies bought over the counter, the record company has quite a different method for counting sales.

It uses one which apparently tells a far rosier picture and explains how an album with a rather mediocre performance can in fact be made to look as though it's selling pretty well.

Naïve told Le Parisien that its computes "sales" by including the number of albums still on stock in the stores (common practice apparently).

Hence with this gentle reinterpretation of reality, Bruni-Sarkozy's record has notched up that magical figure of more than 160,000 (and counting) in France enabling it somehow to surpass the SNEP marker of 100,000 for gold status and fast approaching the double-gold standard of 200,000.

Confusing but clever n'est ce pas?

Whatever the true figure, Bruni-Sarkozy will begin the autumn with another media promotional blitz here in France for this, her third album, with a round of television appearances.

Already slated are a popular Sunday afternoon chat show, Vivement dimanche, a specialist music programme,Taratara and a round-table prime time news talk show (a French speciality) Le Grand Journal.

If the French hadn't already heard that their first lady had released an album - and that's probably a little hard to believe given the coverage it received when it came out - they certainly should have over the next couple of months.

Of course that won't necessarily get them out there buying it, although perhaps the record company will come up with yet another way of telling us all that sales have hit double or even triple the "real" number as they aim for 200,000 domestic sales by Christmas.

Just for the record (groan) the best selling album over the summer here in France was Coldplay's "Viva" according to SNEP. But for the sake of sanity, perhaps it's a good idea not to dwell on the figures.

Pass the aspirin.