THE launch of the Eurostar train service between Paris and St Pancras this Wednesday will no doubt enhance the appeal: just as Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, is cosying up to the Americans, Cecilia, his ex-wife, may be considering a new life in London.

Ever since last month’s announcement of their divorce, le tout Paris has been abuzz with speculation about the voluptuous former “first lady” repackaging herself in some glamorous role overseas.

Property in South Kensington’s “little France”, in west London, is more expensive than in New York, Cecilia’s other favourite bolthole, but London’s proximity to Paris would make it a more convenient home from home for the former model, who turns 50 tomorrow.

“She is rethinking her life,” said Valérie Domain, an author who has collaborated with Cecilia on a biography. “She wants to make a new life somewhere else. New York is too far to go. London would seem a more obvious choice for her.”

Domain has a record of being right about such matters.

Publication of her book about Cecilia was halted by Sarkozy when he was interior minister - he did not like references to his wife being treated like a piece of furniture. The book finally appeared last year, however, under the title Between Heart and Reason, a “novel”.

In it, a politician who bears an uncanny resemblance to Sarkozy becomes president and his wife, a willowy temptress who is a lot like Cecilia, promptly divorces him.

Cecilia’s former spokeswoman in the Elysée Palace would not comment yesterday about any plans for a move to another country. “It is her private life,” said Carina Alphonso-Martin.

Cecilia has a daughter from a previous marriage, Judith, who has lived for years in London where she works in a bank. Cecilia was photographed in New York recently on a break with Jeanne-Marie, her other daughter, and 10-year-old Louis, the son she had with Sarkozy.

When Cecilia first left Sarkozy in 2005 and went to live with Richard Attias, an events organiser, in Manhattan, Louis was enrolled in a school there.

This time, a school in London - perhaps the Lycee Français close friendship between Cecilia and Marc Levy, the French author, who lives in London, but he has described the speculation as “idiotic”.

Cecilia insisted in a recent interview that she was not leaving the president for “anyone or anything”.

This did not soften the blow for “Sarko”, however. Apparently he had long been begging her to reconsider and was seen wearing his wedding ring last week on his first official visit to Washington.

At the White House banquet, Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, sat next to George W Bush, the American president, in the position that would have been reserved for Cécilia.

The role of “first lady” bored her, the president’s ex-wife said, but she has given little hint of what she will do with her life from now on.

Even if romance is not pulling her to Britain, she has plenty of friends besides Levy in London, which is known as the “seventh-largest French city” on account of the 300,000-strong French population.

So popular has London become as a destination for the French that the Canal Plus television station yesterday launched “English week”, an event that it advertised with pictures of frogs trying out sexual positions with lumps of roast beef.

The city’s promise of anonymity may also hold an appeal for Cecilia. Whatever her penchant for posing seductively in the glossy magazines, she said in a recent interview that she wanted a normal life “in the shadows”.

In Paris she is instantly recognisable, even in her dark glasses or behind the wheel of her black Mini. In London it should be easier for her to go shopping without causing a riot.

How she will be able to afford London property prices is a mystery, however.

“Perhaps that’s why Sarkozy gave himself such a big pay rise,” said Domain, referring to the president’s recent salary increase from £5,300 to £16,500 a month.

It could certainly help to pay the rent in South Kensington, for years the favourite French quarter on account of the Lycee. This part of London is even beginning to look like France with its cafe society, French-speaking bookshops and designer boutiques.

“It makes them feel at home,” said Patricia Farley, managing director of Farleys estate agents. “It’s not like other areas, where you have masses of big supermarkets, and it has managed to keep the villagey atmosphere over the years.”

What more could a newly single girl want?

Additional reporting: Anna Mikhailova

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