Snaps of Carla Bruni with fomer lover stolen

The break-in took place at the weekend at the Paris home of Julien Enthoven, whose brother Raphael is the father of Bruni's seven-year-old son Aurelien, said a police official close to the investigation.

Several dozen photographs of Ms Bruni were among others that was taken on Sunday night from the home of Julien Enthoven, the younger brother of Raphaël Enthoven, a philosopher with whom she lived and bore a son, Aurél-ien, in 2001. The couple separated in 2006.

French gossip sites speculated on the possibility that the photographs could be embarrassing to President Sarkozy's wife. In her days as a model Ms Bruni occasionally posed in the nude and pictures from that time have circulated widely on the internet

In Spain on Tuesday accompanying President Nicolas Sarkozy on a state visit, Bruni-Sarkozy signed a series of deals for her cultural foundation, created in April, to work with youths from underprivileged backgrounds in fashion and the arts.