Sarkozy to be subject of 'hugely embarrassing' film charting rise to power and second divorce

The move called The Conquest is the first ever movie about a French president to be released while they are still in office.

It portrays his rise to power in the five years before he was elected in 2007.

And French critics have said it also sheds light on one the greatest mysteries of his presidency - why Cecilia Sarkozy walked out on him on the night of the election.

The film pulls no punches as it opens with Sarkozy waking up alone at a hotel on the Champs-Elysees after celebrating his election victory.

He is then shown spending his first day as President searching in vain for the wife he married in 1996, a former top model and mother of his youngest son Louis, 13.

A scene set on the previous evening later shows him pleading with Cecilia who famously refused to vote for him, to attend the celebrations.

He tells her: 'I'm waiting for you at the Place de la Concorde. You have to come.'  

She finally turns up but if seen crying by his side during the party, before she leaves alone.

The couple's marriage came under intense media scrutiny in France when Cecilia, now 52, had an affair with American millionaire Richard Attias in 2005. 

Her husband responded by having a fling with a young female reporter on France's Le Figaro newspaper. 

After a six-month separation, they reunited when he announced he was standing for president.

But Nicolas and Cecilia were rarely seen together during his election campaign, and after making a brief reappearance once he became president she then told a magazine she had no wish to live in the presidential Elysee Palace.

They finally divorced in October 2007 and she set up home with Attias in New York.