Carla Bruni, wife of President Sarkozy of France has released an album, which has been soaring the pop charts in Britain, despite facing critic’s ire at home.

On Saturday night, pre-orders of her new record, Comme si de rien n’était (As if Nothing Had Happened), saw her reach number five in the amazon.co.uk new releases chart, outselling artists including U2, Primal Scream and Cyndi Lauper.

As Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy, who sings under her maiden name, appeared in a series of television and radio interviews to promote the album last week, British pre-order online sales for her record soared more than 330 per cent in the space of just 24 hours. More than 500,000 people also logged on to her website last week to listen to samples of the album.

“This new release is definitely generating far more interest here than her previous records and she is clearly benefiting from the platform that being a president’s wife gives her as an artist. Until a few months ago, most people had never heard of her,” the Telegraph quoted Damian Peachey, a spokesman for Amazon music , as saying.

Ms Bruni, 40, who lists Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton and the Rollling Stones among her musical influences, has written 11 of the 14 tracks on the new album. Last week, Ms Bruni said that she would not be promoting the album with a concert tour and would donate all proceeds of the album to charity.