Carla Bruni-Sarkozy furious as French magazines publish baby photo

After the French weekly "news" magazine Paris Match published a long-lens photo in it most recent issue in which five-month-old Giulia Sarkozy's face is clearly visible, two other French celebrity rags have followed suit.

Paris Match cover (screenshot AFP report)

And France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is livid.

It doesn't really matter what you think of Bruni-Sarkozy's past - or her present come to that.

You might well regard her as a somewhat laughable and/or incongrous presence alongside her husband Nicolas Sarkozy as he seeks a second term as French president.

But put aside whatever you think about her previous relationships, her career as a top model and the delightful strains of her raspy voice as a singer for one moment and concentrate on her role as a mother.

And surely you have to admit that she has a point in being furious at the French media for not respecting the rights of her five-month-old daughter, Giulia.

Voici cover (screenshot Voici magazine)

Even before she was born in October 2011, Giulia was the focus of more media attention than probably even your average famous adult could handle.

When Bruni-Sarkozy went into hospital for the birth there was a virtual media pack camped outside the hospital, waiting, ready to report ...well what usually happens after a woman has been pregnant for nine months: she gives birth.

Bruni-Sarkozy - or rather Giulia, kept the hungry "newshounds" waiting a while, but then she popped into the world becoming and remaining for the moment, arguably one of the world's most famous babies.

All of course because her parents are who they are.

So that makes her fair game doesn't it? The paparazzi should be able to take whatever long-lens photos they like and magazines publish them regardless.

After all Giulia is newsworthy because her parents are. They survive and thrive partially through exposure so they should expect their children to...well learn to cope with fame.

That's far from being how Bruni-Sarkozy sees it and she insisted from the moment her daughter was born that the French media cut her, and in particular Giulia, some slack and not invade what are very private moments for both of them

So her wrath - measured to say the very least - after the French weekly magazine Paris Match published a photo of the two of them in its last issue, was perhaps more than understandable.

"Because I believe in the principle of the freedom of the press, I have always accepted without any problem the publication of photographs or unauthorised information, even when it's erroneous, concerning my private life," she writes on her official site.

But I deplore any use made ​​of images of children as well as any reporting which might touch on their private lives," she continues.

"I have repeatedly expressed my views on this subject. My position has not changed."

The call though, seems to have fallen on deaf ears as far as the French media is concerned - at least the celebrity and gossip sector of the magazine market.

Paris Match has already featured a photo of Bruni-Sarkozy with Giula on its front cover; one in which the face of the five-month-old is clearly visible.

And two other French magazines are set to follow that example this week with Voici and Closer both planning to publish the photo as a "scoop".

French magazine to publish Adele sextape photos

Oh isn't it just what you wanted to see and read about?

Pictures alleged to be of the Grammy award-winning British singer Adele in a compromising position.

They appear in this week's edition of the French celebrity gossip magazine "Public" which devotes three whole pages of the 23-year-old "enjoying herself".

"It's the revenge of a former boyfriend", runs the headline on the front cover.

"The images come from a video made with a smartphone," explains the magazine.

Infamous French paparazzo Jean Claude Elfassi has apparently also got his hands on stills from the video and to the delight probably of those with the smallest of minds is planning to publish them online from Saturday - uncensored.

Oh well, it obviously pleases some to mess with the lives of others without any sense of morality.

Clearly if someone is a public figure he, or in this case she, is fair game no matter what.

And by the time the singer has managed to get the slow wheels of French justice to grind into action, the story (what story?) and photos will have done their rounds of the magazines and the Net.

Maybe though the whole thing is a hoax designed to sell more copies.

So, just to take your minds away from what will doubtless be a huge (and perhaps meaningless) buzz and to concentrate on what's really interesting about Adele, here's a video - of her singing.

The death of Jocelyn Quivrin and the rise of the "new monsters"

The omnipresent mobile 'phone complete with camera capability can capture moments that many, and not just those in the media spotlight, might wish to forget.

A quick "click" and the damage is done with videos and pictures making their way to a wider audience via the Net as everyone and anyone becomes a "photojournalist".

But sometimes there has to be a limit, as would hopefully appear to be the case in the recent death of the French actor, Jocelyn Quivrin.

Just over a week ago Quivrin was killed in a road accident as he apparently lost control of his car at the entrance to a tunnel on a motorway in a western suburb of Paris.

Quivrin, who most recently appeared in the French film LOL (Laughing out loud) alongside Sophie Marceau, was just 30 years old.

Initial media reports suggested that he had been driving his Ariel Atom, a high performance sports car, well in excess of the speed limit especially as the vehicle's speedometer had been blocked on impact at 230 kilometres per hour (143 mph).

Police however were more circumspect and their caution seemed to be warranted according to a report in the daily newspaper Le Parisien, which said that experts' analysis indicated that he had been travelling at 97 kilometres an hour before the accident happened.

But the exact circumstances around Quivrin's death remain unclear even though police have called for eye witnesses, and this is perhaps where the tale takes a more than slightly macabre turn with the presence of a mobile 'phone.

Because someone on the scene shortly after the accident occurred and before the emergency services arrived decided to use their 'phone to take some images of what had happened and then try to sell them to the highest bidder.

Thankfully though the French media didn't take the bait. In fact among those offered the film there was outright condemnation.

"Pure voyeurism," headlined the French news website, Le Post, which also informed readers that a deputy editor-in-chief of a weekly magazine had turned down the pictures saying they had "been taken minutes after the accident, but there's no question of our buying them and to be quite honest it's appalling."

And from Jean-Claude Elfassi, one of this country's most notorious paparazzi and therefore no stranger to controversy himself, came equally strong language and the description of such behaviour as that of 'the new monsters".

"This person is sadly like so many others," he wrote.

"He tried to negotiate (payment) for these pictures with my friend, Guillaume Clavières, the head of photography for Paris Match, a magazine that has published some of the biggest scoops of the century," he continued.

"But Guillaume didn't want to sell his soul to the devil, and I can understand that."

While the pictures haven't yet surfaced in the pages of a magazine, maybe it's only a matter of time before an editor somewhere decides that it's worth paying a euro or two in an effort to boost circulation figures.

Let's hope not.