Sarkozy drops legal case over SMS story

By Crispian Balmer

PARIS (Reuters) - President Nicolas Sarkozy has dropped a legal case against a magazine that said he had sent a text message to his former wife asking her to return to him, the French leader's new wife said on Wednesday.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who married the president last month, wrote in Le Monde newspaper that her husband had decided to withdraw the case against Le Nouvel Observateur after the journalist concerned wrote to her and apologized.

"The story of the false SMS is now closed," Bruni-Sarkozy said in a column entitled "End the Calumny," before going on to launch a fierce attack on media ethics.

"What is dishonest and worrying about this whole incident is that at no moment was the 'information' checked, corroborated or confirmed," she wrote.

"If rumor now serves as information, if fantasy fuels a scoop, where will we end up? If major newspapers fail to sift out the gossip from the facts, who will?"

The Nouvel Observateur article had said that a week before he married Bruni, Sarkozy sent a text message to former wife Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz which said: "If you come back, I'll call everything off."

The journalist at the centre of the scandal, Airy Routier, confirmed on Wednesday writing to Bruni-Sarkozy to apologize for hurting her feelings, but made clear he stood by his story.

"I have absolutely not modified my position on the authenticity of the contested SMS," Routier said.