Carla Bruni is not the only former model in the Elysee Palace. Even her husband, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, posed for advertisements when he was a boy.

At the age of 12, Sarkozy appeared in an advertisement for Bonux -- a brand famed for inserting children’s toys into its packets -- in which his dark hair was lightened to blond for publicity purposes, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported.

The advertisement photos, carried by the British newspaper, shows the young Sarkozy carrying an aircraft model in his hand and behind him is a story about flying to China.

“Was he already thinking about his first official trip to China in his brand new presidential plane?”wondered ‘Voici’ magazine on its website.

In fact, his father Pal Sarkozy de Nagy Bocsa came up with the commercial, published in 1967, while he was working as an illustrator for Bonux. He went on to become a wealthy and successful advertising executive with a penchant for fast cars and expensive art works.

However, the young Nicolas is unlikely to have benefited financially from his brief modelling career; at the time his father had already abandoned Nicolas’ mother, Andrée - his first wife - and refused to increase alimony despite her difficulties in providing for their three young sons.

Sarkozy had a deeply conflictual relationship with his father, who once told his young son he would never be a high flier. “With the name you carry and the (school) results you’re getting, you’ll never succeed in France,” he predicted.

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