French first lady's drug-inspired lyrics 'painful for Colombia': minister

Though some French critics are raving about Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's new album, Colombia's foreign minister is giving a thumbs down to one song in particular by the French first lady.

Recent reviews in France have raved about the former model and singer's upcoming new album Comme si de Rien N'tait (As If Nothing Happened), including a critic from La Figaro newspaper calling it "the mature work of an exceptional singer."

Many of these early reviews mused about whether lyrics like "You are my drug/More deadly than Afghan heroin/More dangerous than Colombian white" referred to her new husband, French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

However, those lyrics have alsoraised the ire of Colombian Foreign Affairs Minister Fernando Araujo.

"Coming from the mouth of the wife of the president of France, this type of statement is very painful for Colombia," Araujo said Thursday. "Such things come out when we mix politics with theatre."

Araujo also criticized the consumption of cocaine "in any setting and at any level" and said the drug "translates into deaths and violence in Colombia."

Set for wide release across France and North America in July, Comme si de Rien N'tait is the 40-year-old former supermodel's third album.

It was largely recorded after her whirlwind romance with the recently divorced, 53-year-old French president last winter. They wed in early February.

In an interview with French celebrity magazine VSD published this week, Bruni-Sarkozy acknowledged that she anticipates a different sort of attention for her latest album because of her new roles as both singer and first lady.

"Perceptions will not only be musical. Criticism, which is useful, risks being blurred for good or for bad by the fact that I am the president's wife," she told the magazine, according to Reuters.