London, April 29 (Inditop) Hundreds of “highly intimate” images of French first lady Carla Bruni and an ex-lover were stolen during a Paris burglary, a media report said.

The photographs and videos were taken during the 41-year-old’s affair with philosopher Raphael Enthoven, the father of her eight-year-old child, Aurelien, the Fox news reported Tuesday.

On Sunday night, thieves broke into the Left Bank apartment of Raphael’s younger brother, actor Julien Enthoven.

Raphael had given the pictures to his brother to keep because he did not want them to embarrass his new partner or President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to police.

“The thieves appeared to know exactly what they were looking for. They took highly intimate prints, a camera full of images, videos, and numerous computer files,” one detective said. ‘Nobody was at home at the time, and nothing else was taken.”

Police now fear whoever has the pictures could take advantage of Bruni’s status as an international sex symbol by selling the pictures for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Otherwise they could be posted on the web to cause maximum embarrassment to Sarkozy, who is only too well aware of his third wife’s colorful past, which has included affairs with British rockers Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger.