Silvio Berlusconi the end of April 2009, Berlusconi's wife Veronica Lario, who would divorce him several years later, wrote an open letter expressing her anger at Berlusconi's choice of young, attractive female candidates—some with little or no political experience—to represent the party in the 2009 European Parliament elections. Berlusconi demanded a public apology, claiming that for the third time his wife had "done this to me in the middle of an election campaign", and stated that there was little prospect of his marriage continuing. On 3 May, Lario announced she was filing for divorce. She claimed that Berlusconi had not attended his
Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a partnership to help Africa confront it. Konare's wife Adame Ba Konare also started a movement of promotion of African History following Sarkozy's speech. South African president Thabo Mbeki praised Sarkozy's speech and called him a "citizen of Africa", which raised criticism by some in the South African media. In 2004, Nicolas Sarkozy published a book called "La République, les religions, l'espérance" ("The Republic, Religions, and Hope"), in which he argued that the young should not be brought up solely on secular or republican values. He also advocated reducing the separation of church and state, arguing for the government