Carla Bruni supports gay marriage

Carla Bruni, the former first lady of France, says she disagrees with her conservative husband Nicolas Sarkozy and supports a plan to allow gay marriage and adoption.

In an interview with the French edition of Vogue for its December issue, the 44-year-old singer and supermodel said: "I'm rather in favor because I have a lot of friends - men and women - who are in this situation and I see nothing unstable or perverse in families with gay parents."

France's Socialists are pushing a bill that could see gay marriage legalized early next year. Though surveys have found that the majority of French people favor gay marriage, there has been a vocal backlash from religious leaders, voters in rural areas and ex-President Sarkozy's own UMP party.

"My husband is opposed for reasons linked to his political vocation, because he sees people as groups of thousands rather than people we know personally," she told the magazine - which featured a 20-page photo spread of her decked out in designer clothes, harking back to her supermodel days.