Heavenly Creatures! More First Lady Fashion At Strasbourg Cathedral (PHOTOS)
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STRASBOURG, France — It was perhaps not what Michelle Obama expected on her first presidential foray to France. But it was certainly French.
Anti-war and anti-capitalist protesters tangled the streets of the Alsatian city of Strasbourg and thwarted her planned visit to an anti-cancer research center with other spouses of NATO leaders.
Police barricades and narrow pedestrian streets that wind through the city center meant she couldn't get there and back by motorcade.
So the visit was shelved, and they had an unplanned coffee with the French first lady instead. A few kilometers (miles) away, Molotov cocktails and tear gas canisters exploded as protesters pushed back riot police, filling the spring air with smoke and acrid stench. Nearby, 28 NATO leaders met to choose a new chief for the alliance and seek answers for Afghanistan.
Such violence is not all that common here. But marches, strikes and demonstrations are a standard form of public expression in France, and cars are regularly burned on the weekends in Stasbourg's poorer neighborhoods.
Michelle Obama and the other spouses stuck to their main event of the day: a visit to a 15th century cathedral that is a UNESCO-protected monument in the historic city center.
It wasn't a women-only affair _ German Chancellor Angela Merkel's husband, Joachim Sauer, joined them, too.
They had Strasbourg's Notre Dame Cathedral largely to themselves, since the towering marvel of Gothic architecture was part of the "red zone" of the city restricted to outsiders.
As a French priest gave them a tour, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy translated into English. Michelle Obama walked side-by-side with Hayrunnisa Gul, the Turkish president's Muslim wife, head sheathed in a scarf.
A toccata resounded from the organ embedded in polychromatic sculpted wood, as priest Bernard Eckert described the stained glass windows as "comic books" of their time.
Earlier, the last-minute hospital visit cancellation caused a protocol mishap. The spouses were sent to the 18th century Palais de Rohan instead of the hospital, but the wives of the Slovenian president and the Albanian president and prime minister showed up too fast _ even before their hostess, Bruni-Sarkozy.
The French first lady, a former supermodel, handled it with aplomb, striding in in black pants and a camel coat, and shaking each arrival by hand.
Michelle Obama arrived last in a belted black coat _ and was the only one to win a double-cheek kiss from Carla. The two held hands briefly for the cameras.
The two women went head-to-head at their first meeting Friday in what people-watchers and tabloids dubbed a fashion face-off. Each held her own. Fuschia-robed Obama charmed French onlookers. Demurely dressed Bruni-Sarkozy signed autographs for fans of her throaty, and sometimes racy, folk songs.
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Associated Press Writer Laurent Pirot contributed to this report.
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AP | ANGELA CHARLTON | April 6, 2009 at 07:06 AM