Hundreds of "highly intimate" images of French First Lady Carla Bruni and an ex-lover were stolen during a Paris burglary.
The photographs and videos were taken during the 41-year-old's affair with philosopher Raphaël Enthoven, the father of her eight-year-old child, Aurélien.
On Sunday night, thieves broke into the Left Bank apartment of Raphaël's younger brother, actor Julien Enthoven. Raphaël had given the pictures to his brother to keep because he did not want them to embarrass his new partner or President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to police.
Click here for photos of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and her husband.
"The thieves appeared to know exactly what they were looking for. They took highly intimate prints, a camera full of further images, videos, and numerous computer files," one detective said. 'Nobody was at home at the time, and nothing else was taken."
Police now fear whoever has the pictures could take advantage of Bruni's status as an international sex symbol by selling the pictures for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Otherwise they could be posted on the web to cause maximum embarrassment to Sarkozy, who is only too well aware of his third wife's colorful past, which has included affairs with British rockers Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger.
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