Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is facing embarrassment over an internet film featuring explicit comments she made about sex and love as a young model.

The 27-minute film, which has been posted on the video-sharing website YouTube, contains excerpts from interviews of the young Miss Bruni that juxtapose her risqué past with her demure present as the wife of the French president.

In one section, the Italian-born Miss Bruni produces from her handbag a book called Hot International Love and Sex Guides, which translates key phrases on all things erotic into seven languages.

"We need these kinds of books because we're travelling all around the world, we're meeting new people and we want to know what to tell them in case we get into bed with them," she tells interviewers on the Channel 4 show Eurotrash.

The then Miss Bruni, who was 28 when the show was broadcast in 1996, proceeds to offer four translations of "You get me very hot", ending in the Italian "Mi eccite tanto".

She then moves on to more explicit phrases sparking an "oh no!" from one of the interviewers.

Thomas Cazals, the producer who compiled the portrait called In the Tube with Carla Bruni, said he did it "starting with the naive idea of better getting to know this character". The Elysée apparently took swift action against the film as by Sunday evening it had been removed from Mr Cazals' blog.

Although the film also carries tributes from couturiers who admire Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy's intelligence, beauty and wit, it will be unwelcome. She has been trying to play down her colorful past since marrying Nicolas Sarkozy two years ago.

While continuing her singing career, she has been forging an image as a first lady dedicated to her husband and charity.

(Read by Lee Hannon. Lee Hannon is a journalist at the China Daily Web site.)

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(Agencies)