Ex-wife accuses Sarkozy of sacking new hubby

London, Sept 22 : French President Nicolas Sarkozy's ex-wife Cecilia has accused him of getting her present husband Richard Attias sacked from organising a prestigious gathering of world leaders.

The 50-year-old left Sarkozy last October to marry Attias, a Moroccan-born events organiser.

However, it seems that she still has an axe to grind with Sarkozy, who married Bruni within four months of divorcing her.

Talking to a Swiss newspaper last week, Cecilia blamed the French President for getting Attias sacked from organising the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

However, the President's office denied that he had played any role in sabotaging Attias' career, saying that he was happily remarried and had "long since moved on".

According to Cecilia, Attias was told on the day of their marriage that his services were no longer required as an organiser of the Davos event.

She claimed that Klaus Schwab, the business professor who founded the forum in 1971, did not want it "to be at loggerheads with the French government."

"It was a nice wedding present. Since then I have learnt that the French president will probably attend the next Davos although he had never gone before," Times Online quoted Cecilia as saying.

In fact, a source in the Publicis communications company agreed that they were trying to secure attendance of a French leader at the Davos event, whose participants have included Tony Blair and Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor.

"You could hardly expect (Sarkozy) to show up in the knowledge that his former wife's new husband is the organiser," said the source.

However, he added that he had no inkling of the circumstances of Attias's dismissal.

Mark Adams, a spokesman for the World Economic Forum, denied sacking Attias, describing him as simply a "subcontractor".

He said: "We never employed him directly, so we couldn't sack him." A presidential spokesman said he did not know if Sarkozy would be attending the next Davos summit but noted that he was scheduled to speak at the World Policy Conference, a rival forum set up by the French Institute of International Relations, in Evian, home of the mineral water, next month.

ANI