PARIS (AFP) - Cecilia Sarkozy, whose husband Nicolas was elected Sunday as France's new president, is a fiercely independent former model and PR executive unlikely to fit easily into the discreet role of first lady. I don't see myself as a first lady. It bores me. I prefer going round in combat trousers and cowboy boots. I don't fit the mould," the elegant 49-year-old brunette has said. Her arrival at the Elysee will certainly send in a blast of modernity after 12 years of the Chiracs, whose bourgeois respectability sat well with the Louis XV furniture of the 18th century palace. Like the defeated Socialist candidate Segolene Royal, Cecilia and her husband are in a relationship that flies in the face of presidential convention but which in many ways reflects the changing sociology of France.

Of Jewish-Spanish ancestry, Cecilia's foreign roots match those of Sarkozy, who is half Hungarian and quarter Jewish. In 2004 she made a point of saying she did "not have a drop of French blood in my veins."Cecilia was conspicuously absent from Sarkozy's election campaign -- setting tongues wagging and reawakening memories of 2005 when the couple split for several months.As if to quell the gossip, she was photographed voting with Sarkozy and celebrating his victory in round one two weeks ago, but was again absent from his side when he voted in the decisive second round on Sunday.

When Sarkozy entered government in 2002, Cecilia had an office in the interior ministry, but in early 2005 she disappeared from view and it was revealed she had left him for an advertising executive in New York.

Picture of President elect Sarkozy, Nicolas Sarkozy (2R), France's UMP political party presidential candidate, poses with his wife Cecilia (2L), and her daughters Judith (L) and Jeanne-Marie Martin (R) as they leave a polling station in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris, April 22, 2007. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer (FRANCE)

A few months later they were reconciled.

PARIS - Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidency by a comfortable margin Sunday and immediately signalled his victory would mean friendly relations with the United States. His socialist opponent, Segolene Royal, conceded defeat for her hopes of becoming France's first woman president. With nearly 70 percent of ballots counted, Sarkozy had just over 53 percent of the vote, according to the Interior Ministry.

Washington can "count on our friendship," Sarkozy told hundreds of cheering supporters, though he added that "friendship means accepting that friends can have different opinions."

President Bush swiftly phoned the new president-elect to offer congratulations."The United States and France are historic allies and partners. President Bush looks forward to working with President-elect Sarkozy as we continue our strong alliance," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.