Will Carla Bruni Dedicate a Love Song to Sarkozy?

The model-singer is halfway done recording a new album, and will tour in 2008

Photo: CHAMUSSY/SIPA

It seems that Carla Bruni isn’t ready to put down her guitar – despite her very public romance with French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

In fact, France’s possible First-Lady-In-Waiting looks all set to cut a new album – and hit the road on tour in 2008.

“Carla is halfway done recording a new album of French and Italian love songs based on her own poems,” a source at Bruni’s Paris label Na ve Records, tells PEOPLE – and the Italian singer and sometime model is planning an August release and concert tour.

Bruni’s most recent offering, released in January 2007, was called No Promises and lived up to its title when it delivered no hits. Undeterred, the smoky-voiced singer-songwriter is said to have already completed six of a planned dozen songs for her latest project.

Bruni, who spent last week in Egypt with the French president, was photographed strolling with one hand in the pocket of his jeans and the other on her hip. Some French media have suggested they will marry in 2008.

If she weds Sarkozy, Bruni could find herself in conflict with a tradition of dull-but-dutiful presidential wives who usually inhabit Paris’ Elys e Palace and are expected to represent the country as elegant – but silent – partners.

Although a singing presidential spouse would be something of a novelty, it seems that however Bruni plays it, her beau is smitten.

“They’d never met each other – and I don’t think they’ll ever leave one another again,” Jacques Seguela, the businessman who introduced the couple at a November 2007 dinner party, said in a radio interview broadcast in France Saturday.