Cherie's relief over Bruni visit

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Cherie Blair has told of her "deep sense of relief" she did not have to stand next to Nicholas Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni on her visit to Britain.

In an interview with US magazine Vanity Fair she joked it was not a "fair comparison" - the French president's wife is a former supermodel.

She added she liked to think of herself as someone who might be "a role model for people who want to become lawyers".

Mrs Blair said history would judge her husband, former PM Tony, "very well".

"He'll be up there with Churchill," she argued.

I'm somebody who might be, I'd like to think, a role model for people who want to become lawyers Cherie Blair

But on her own performance as prime minister's wife Mrs Blair, who enjoyed an uneasy relationship with the British media, added: "Just look at the press cuttings. You couldn't say that it was a triumph, could you?"

Much press coverage of President Sarkozy's state visit to London in March focused on Ms Bruni, a glamorous former model turned singer.

The couple were photographed with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah outside 10 Downing Street.

Mrs Blair told Vanity Fair she did not envy them: "I felt a deep sense of relief when Carla Bruni came over with the French president and I wasn't the one who had to stand next to her, because that isn't really a fair comparison is it?

"Since I'm not a fashion model, there's a limit to how nice I can make myself. I don't regard myself as an ugly person, but I don't think of myself as someone who would choose to be a model.

"I'm somebody who might be, I'd like to think, a role model for people who want to become lawyers."

The magazine describes her as "the most controversial prime minister's wife in recent memory".

Mrs Blair admitted she thought her husband was "rather embarrassed by the love affair bits" in her autobiography and was more interested in the political parts.