L’Aquila (Italy), July 10 (ANI): The Italian press has gone to town about the snobbish ways of Carla Bruni, the wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Bruni stayed away from the first wives’ audience with Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday. She also avoided a visit to the earthquake-affected areas of the city on Thursday, preferring to undertake it on Friday.

The Il Giornale newspaper, which is owned by the brother of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said: “Someone tell the first lady that snobbery to the nth degree where we come from is called boorishness.”

“Of course we should recognize that Carla has always been very attentive to the needs of the disadvantaged… but then if you act like that, even charity stinks,” wrote editorialist Federico Novella.

Bruni-Sarkozy is a global ambassador for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. (ANI)