Carla Bruni-Sarkozy expecting twins? (UPDATES)

France’s first lady, former model and singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is pregnant with twins, according to a report in glossy showbiz magazine Voici.

Bruni-Sarkozy has fueled speculation she is pregnant, refusing to deny rumors and saying “my lips are sealed to protect something.”

In a somewhat convoluted answer during her first interview since reports surfaced last week that she was pregnant, the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy said she would “like to talk about it,” but didn’t want to risk derailing her husband’s political agenda with private matters.

Last week, two French magazines reported the 43-year-old first lady was due to give birth in October.

Bruni-Sarkozy was giving an interview to six readers of Le Parisien newspaper at the Elysee Palace.

One asked her: “Are you expecting a baby?”

According to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, Bruni-Sarkozy replied: "If you'll allow me, I'd rather not answer these family questions.

"I'd love to talk to you woman to woman about my family life, my personal dreams What's more, I'm really a very chatty person. But on this subject, in some way my lips are sealed. Not through arrogance or because I like keeping secrets.

“My lips are sealed to protect something and to protect all the work (my husband) does."

She went on: "I would really like to to talk about it, but then it would take over everything else."

Another reader present at the interview told Le Parisien: "She hides her little tum with a shawl every time a photographer approaches, she doesn't deny it when we ask her off mike. But she's right to be cautious: at 43, it's always a fragile pregnancy.”

This reader went on to say Bruni-Sarkozy made it clear off-the-record that she was “100 per cent” pregnant.

President Sarkozy, 56, is facing a tough election in just under a year. His approval rating is languishing at just 20 percent. He is losing support to the far-right National Front under its second-generation leadership of Marine Le Pen, daughter of long-time leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

He also faces a charismatic potential Socialist rival in Dominique Strauss-Kahn, currently head of the International Monetary Fund. He polls double Sarkozy’s figure as preferred president.

Both president and first lady have children from previous relationships. Bruni-Sarkozy has a nine-year-old son, Aurelian. Sarkozy has two sons, Pierre, 26, and Jean, 25, from his first marriage to Marie-Dominique Culioli. He also had a son, 14-year-old Louis, with his second wife Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz.

An Elysee Palace spokesman said Carla's pregnancy was a “private matter,” according to Britain’s Daily Mail.