Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy come to life as comic characters

The relationship between President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni (pictured) has been laid bare in a new 'investigative comic book' about the couple's life in the Elysee Palace. Carla et Carlito depicts the First Lady as the power behind the throne with a mission to remould France according to her own champagne-socialist tastes.

Spread over 62 pages, the book has been researched by one of France's best-known investigative journalists and is backed up by two pages of scholarly footnotes. The book has an insider feel: it reveals, for instance, that the President is known to his own staff at the Elysee Palace as 'Carlito' - or little Carla - because he has fallen so deeply under the influence of his wife.

These 'facts', however, are mingled with unashamed fantasy, such as a sequence of Disney-like frames showing Bruni smoking what looks like a giant reefer cigarette (contents unspecified) and a front-cover image showing her carrying a tiny Sarkozy in a baby sling.

Throughout the book the authors, journalist Philippe Cohen and artist Richard Malka, show Bruni as a clever, manipulative woman with a personal and political agenda of her own, something that the French public increasingly believe to be the case. It also playfully muses on the idea that Carla may one day emerge as the 'French Hillary' and run for the presidency herself.

Cohen told the Independent: "Sarkozy is a man who has always been influenced by women, who has always needed the presence of a strong woman. Contrary to what some people say, he is not a man of strongly held opinions. He can be influenced and he is being influenced by Carla on some issues."

Meanwhile, a spoof diary called 'Le Journal de Carla B' that has been running in France's satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaine appears to back up the idea that Bruni has a political agenda. It was reported last week that the president's wife regularly feeds its authors with positive stories about herself "to send out the right messages".