Bruni branded 'new Marie Antoinette'

Drawing comparisons with Antoinette, ill-fated wife of King Louis XVI who was beheaded during the French Revolution, Point de Vue has portrayed the 41-year-old Bruni as a daffy multi-millionaire socialite who does very little real work and is completely out of touch with ordinary people.

The magazine juxtaposes photos of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife with paintings of the Queen of France whose high living and laziness led to her being guillotined in 1793, at the height of the French Revolution, The Daily Telegraph reported.

“Same posture, same look, same smile,” wrote Point de Vue at the start of an eight-page feature, adding that both women were infamous for their obsession with designer clothes and their own physical images.

While Antoinette relied on court artist Elisabeth Vigee-Le Brun for her flattering portraits, Carla Bruni gets hers done by American photographer Annie Lebovitz, who charges thousands of dollars a picture.

Both share a love of music and performing — while the French Queen would sing and play the harpsichord, Bruni is a self-styled pop singer, according to the weekly magazine, which specialises in covering the lives of aristocrats and European royalty.

The magazine has also claimed that Bruni’s faddish tastes were out of step with traditional rural French, who expected their First Ladies to be both self-effacing and hard working — not obsessed with psychoanalysis.

In addition, it claims Bruni, who comes from a wealthy Italian family, represents nothing but inherited wealth, just like the former Habsburg Princess.