Up To Date france

French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his former model wife Carla Bruni have both been accused of conducting extra marital affairs by online sources.

The allegations, which first surfaced on the social networking site Twitter, have been perpetuated by a number of online gossip blogs, causing a national scandal and press frenzy in France.

The first allegation to emerge concerned the French first lady, who was accused of  being engaged in a tryst with a musician, who online sources claimed she had set up a love nest within the French capital.

The allegations were shocking enough in themselves, but as the French public attempted to make sense of the situation, further rumours emerged – this time that the president himself was engaging in an extra marital affair.

According to numerous online sources, president Sarkozy was involved in a relationship with a female French minister.

And while some gossip pundits have leant credibility to the rumours citing their emergence from multiple sources, others have claimed that they may have been created by those with ulterior motives.

The supposed scandal comes as the French president battles against his lowest ever approval rating in the country.

Sarkozy and Bruni have been married since 2008, when they wed after a three month romance following a meeting at a dinner party, and, while many have commented on the unlikely match, their marriage has been a seemingly happy one until this point.

France is mourning the death of a resistance heroine who has died aged 105.

Andree Peel, nee Andree Virot, was known as Agent Rose by Resistance and allied forces during the second world war and is credited with helping dozens of British and American airmen escaped Nazi occupied France during the conflict.

Aged in her 30s when the Germans invaded, and her involvement in the Resistance began almost instantaneously.

As Hitler’s troops marched into her home town of Brest she offered fleeing French soldiers sanctuary in her hairdressing salon before providing them with civilian clothing in order to keep them from being captured.

In 1940 she became an integral part of the local Resistance, rising through the ranks from paper girl delivering morale boosting publication to quickly head up her own under-section in direct communication with allied forces.

Over the course of the occupation, Andree helped to save the lives of more than 100 Allied. She used torches to guide in Allied aircraft and guided airmen to ships and sub waiting for them off the Breton coast under the cover of darkness.

Twice betrayed, she eventually fell into the hands of the Gestapo in Paris and was sent to Ravensbruck where she avoided the gas chamber on two separate occasions through luck and generosity.

Transferred to Buchenwald near the end of the war, Andree found herself facing a firing squad as allied liberators closed in and was granted a last minute reprieve by the interception of American forces.

After the war she became a restaurant owner in Paris and married Englishman John Peel.

She died on March 5.

French fishermen rescues six Somali pirates from the sea, just minutes after the gang had attempted to board their vessel, it was revealed yesterday.

The crew of the Talenduic, a French tuna boat, were targeted by the pirates as they fished waters around 400 miles south of the Somali coast on March 8.

The French boat was forced to put out a call for help to other ships in the area when they were surrounded by three boats being piloted in an aggressive fashion.

The pirates then attempted to attack the fishing boat, apparently unaware that all French boats currently fishing in the region are carrying armed guards.

Their attack was reportedly countered with rifle fire causing them to abandon their attempts and make efforts to flee the area.

But in the panic two of the pirate craft were capsized, after being hit by swells and driving into a rescue vessel arriving on the scene, depositing half a dozen Somali pirates into the Indian Ocean.

The magnanimous French crew helped to rescue their attackers pulling them aboard one of the Tuna boats.

The unlikely tale of heroism comes at the end of a week that has seen a strong French presence in the treacherous waters, with counter piracy strikes led by the French navy vessel Le Nivose netting 35 suspected Somali pirates.