Carla Bruni shows maternal side as she welcomes Haitian orphans to France
on 23rd January 2010
The French first lady looked delighted as she greeted dozens of Haitian orphans upon their arrival in Paris.
Thirty-three children aged between one and six years were met at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport by Carla Bruni, the wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
They are expected to join their adoptive families once their papers had been verified.
But in scenes which were a world away from the devastating aftermath of the killer earthquake, Ms Bruni offered compassion and kindness as she knelt down to talk to the orphans.
France's first lady Carla Bruni and a member of the Red Cross kneel down to one of the 33 Haitian orphans
Compassion: The French First Lady connects with a girl
Carla Bruni tries to tempt another orphan into conversation
Each had a Haitian passport with the family name of their adoptive family but also their birth family's surname.
'It's very important that a child knows where he came from,' one nurse said.
In the days since the quake, families around the world in the process of adopting Haitian children have pressured their governments to speed up the adoption process.
The children - some orphans and others abandoned - had left the school where they had taken shelter after the destruction and headed to the Port-au-Prince airport singing 'the little train'.
The children were also due to meet Red Cross and Emergency Medical Assistance Service personnel to treat 'the emotional and psychological shock they have been through,' an official said.
Several of the children had lived in a nursery that was severely damaged in last week's earthquake but 'not a single child was injured and not a single adoption file was lost,' French consul in Haiti, Jean-Pierre Gueguan confirmed.
State welcome: One of the new arrivals is taken aback
dailymail
