Home
Politics
On her first trip as goodwill ambassador for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Bruni-Sarkozy also dismissed chances of taking on another job -- in politics.
"I am not ready for a political career," she said.
Referring to France's former first lady Bernadette Chirac, who also served as a local politician in the south-central Correze region, Bruni-Sarkozy added, "she is a real political woman. She knows the work on the ground.
"I don't think I would be capable of doing that," she said.
The wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy, Bruni-Sarkozy agreed in November to become a goodwill ambassador for the protection of mothers and children against AIDS.
Some 130,000 people, half of them women, live with the virus causing AIDS in Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest countries.
Still, the west African country has managed to slice HIV infections from 7.4 percent in 1997 to two percent in 2005 -- partly thanks to more condom use, the United Nations said in a report last year.
The number of HIV-infected babies born has also dropped dramatically in recent years, according to the Burkinabe national AIDS council CNLS.
Based in Geneva, the Global Fund oversees hundreds of programmes in 136 countries through public-private partnerships that have raised more than 11 billion dollars.
Bruni-Sarkozy, who married the French leader a year ago, expressed an interest to help fight HIV following a visit to South Africa, which has one of the world's largest AIDS caseloads.
She said she hoped her status as first lady could help advance a worthy global cause.
---------------------------------------------------
Image of France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy meeting with mothers and their children at a hospital in Ouagadougou, while on her first trip as a goodwill ambassador for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS; by Ahmed Ouoba.
"I am not ready for a political career," she said.
Referring to France's former first lady Bernadette Chirac, who also served as a local politician in the south-central Correze region, Bruni-Sarkozy added, "she is a real political woman. She knows the work on the ground.
"I don't think I would be capable of doing that," she said.
The wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy, Bruni-Sarkozy agreed in November to become a goodwill ambassador for the protection of mothers and children against AIDS.
Some 130,000 people, half of them women, live with the virus causing AIDS in Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest countries.
Still, the west African country has managed to slice HIV infections from 7.4 percent in 1997 to two percent in 2005 -- partly thanks to more condom use, the United Nations said in a report last year.
The number of HIV-infected babies born has also dropped dramatically in recent years, according to the Burkinabe national AIDS council CNLS.
Based in Geneva, the Global Fund oversees hundreds of programmes in 136 countries through public-private partnerships that have raised more than 11 billion dollars.
Bruni-Sarkozy, who married the French leader a year ago, expressed an interest to help fight HIV following a visit to South Africa, which has one of the world's largest AIDS caseloads.
She said she hoped her status as first lady could help advance a worthy global cause.
---------------------------------------------------
Image of France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy meeting with mothers and their children at a hospital in Ouagadougou, while on her first trip as a goodwill ambassador for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS; by Ahmed Ouoba.
