New York, Mar 11 : French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni have been branded Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette after the couple spent the weekend in a 5,500-dollar-a-night beach-front villa in Mexico.

While the prez and his wife share the `Presidential Villa' at the resort - complete with a private pool, outdoor Jacuzzi and the service of a butler, personal chef and maid - more than 15 percent of the French workforce is making minimum wage, and the number of unemployed has risen beyond 2 million.

One newspaper reader posted an Internet reaction to the holiday saying: "Sarko and Carla are back acting like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette again. They have no appreciation of what ordinary people are going through."

The couple spent the weekend at the El Tamarindo Beach and Golf Resort, located in a nature reserve on Mexico's southeastern Pacific Coast, reports the New York Daily News.

In addition, the former model showed up at a Mexican state dinner clad in a dazzling array of diamonds.

The irony is that her husband was in Mexico City to discuss the world recession with his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon. (ANI)