First Ladies' Club; Cecilia Sarkozy thought she would be 'bored' as First Lady. Instead, she has transformed the role.

Byline: Tracy McNicoll (With Christopher Dickey in Nice)

France's scene-stealing new First Lady made a spectacular foray into geopolitics last month with her controversial role in the liberation of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor from a Libyan prison. Her actual influence in ending the eight-year ordeal remains ambiguous: "She was lucky," Saif al-Islam Qadhafi, the Libyan leader's son, told NEWSWEEK. Lucky or not, after two trips to Libya and a long conversation with the man who was once the most roguish of state leaders in his Bedouin tent, the mythmaking had begun.

Three months in "office," Cecilia, 49, had set herself apart from her predecessors in France and from the current crop of European First Spouses, who steer clear of public affairs. A former fashion model--tall, feline, reticent at times--she had seemed like the last First Lady who would throw herself brazenly into the world of international diplomacy. While her husband angled ferociously for the presidency, two years ago Cecilia said the prospect of being First Lady "bored" her. Yet there she was, waving triumphantly from the tarmac in Sofia, Bulgaria, freed hostages in tow. Suddenly, Mme. Sarkozy is emerging as a rare figure in Europe--an American-style First Lady, and one who may well come to combine the glamour of a Jackie O with the activist bent of an Eleanor Roosevelt or Pat Nixon.

It's not that the current crop of European First Spouses don't have lives, or talents, it's just that they rarely risk testing them in the public spotlight. (What if Cecilia had come home empty-handed?) The British press praises the dignified discretion of Sarah Brown, who skipped her husband's first trip as prime minister to the United States. Joachim Sauer, Angela Merkel's husband, a professor of chemistry at Berlin's Humboldt University, was dubbed the "Phantom of the Opera" because for a while, the only appearance he made with his wife was at the annual opera festival in Bayreuth. Italy's Flavia Prodi is an economics professor. Spain's Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's wife, Sonsoles Espinosa, sang soprano in a Paris performance of "Carmen" this spring.

But in Europe, no matter how skilled First Spouses may be, they still run into trouble--possibly more than their American counterparts--if they are seen to be using the unofficial role too publicly. The British pilloried Cherie Blair for appearing to use her status as a prime minister's wife to advance her law practice. True, Hillary Clinton also received brutal criticism from both sides of the political spectrum, particularly for her attempts at creating a national health plan, but she was becoming a real power player--stepping beyond the accepted role carved out from Roosevelt through Barbara Bush of a good-will ambassador for the nation. That may be the role Cecilia Sarkozy is now creating.

French observers have offered up several "First Ladies Americaines, " including Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, as possible templates to define their leading lady. "She has something in common with American First Ladies in that she has already had a mission, and an important one," says Regine Torrent, author of the book "First Ladies, d'Eleanor Roosevelt A Hillary Clinton." Yet Torrent rejects the Roosevelt comparison because she was politically active before she became First Lady. Similarly, Clinton was already a ...