Bruni to release new pop album

The first lady is releasing a third pop album in July featuring 14 songs.

Her agent said most of the material was written before she met President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The yet untitled album includes a vintage Bob Dylan tune, an Italian song and a piece based on a poem by controversial French author Michel Houellebecq, said Bruni's agent Bertrand de Labbey.

Among the brow-raising titles on the album is a song called Ma Came, which means “My Drug Addiction”, which is in fact a love song, written more than two years ago.

Bruni, 40, composed the music and wrote the lyrics to most of the songs on the album that is due out in France, Britain, Germany and in her native Italy on July 21.

Mr de Labbey said: "95% of the songs on the album were written before she met the president.

"The voice tracks are done but the album still needs some sound mixing.

“It's just a matter of perfecting it but, as she is a perfectionist, it will take time.”

Bruni, a former supermodel who veered into music in her mid-thirties, married Sarkozy in February after a three-month romance and has said she will be his wife "until death."

Her first album Quelqu'un M'a Dit (Someone Told Me) released in 2002 was a hit with 1.2 million copies sold in France and 800,000 abroad.

But her second release No Promises in early 2007 was considered a disappointment with only 80,000 copies sold. The album featured English poems set to music.