PARIS (AFP) ― Former French first lady Carla Bruni’s new album rose to second place in the country’s music charts only a week after being released, her label Barclay Records told AFP on Tuesday.

The album, “Little French Songs,” sold nearly 19,000 copies on CD and was downloaded 3,794 times between its release on April 1 and April 7, the label said.

Bruni, a 45-year-old Italian-born former supermodel and singer, married then-president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008 after a whirlwind romance.

The new album is Bruni’s fourth and her first since 2008’s “Comme Si De Rien N’Etait” (Simply).

Her musical career was put on hold while Sarkozy, who was defeated by Socialist Francois Hollande in last May’s presidential vote, was in office.

The new album includes a song, “Chez Keith et Anita” (At Keith and Anita’s Place), in which Bruni, a former girlfriend of Mick Jagger, depicts the drug-fuelled lifestyle of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and his longtime girlfriend Anita Pallenberg.

It also includes a song ― “The Penguin” ― that French media have reported is a veiled swipe at Hollande, depicting him as a bumbling buffoon with no manners.