Sacha Baron Cohen has set up camp in gay Paris for the premiere of his widely-anticipated new film, Bruno.

The star, whose previous comedy incarnations include Ali G and Borat, plays a gay Austrian fashionista.

Keeping in character throughout the premiere, Baron Cohen kept up his provocative comic style by making jokes about French President Nicolas Sarkozy's height and his former supermodel wife Carla Bruni.

He said: "Tonight you are all in great company. I have invited a lot of celebrities, Mick Jagger, Donald Trump, Eric Clapton, and many many more of Carla Bruni's ex-boyfriends.

"I was hoping that Sarkozy would have turned up himself here tonight and join me on this platform, and I even have a box ready for him to stand on and I have put a high chair in the cinema.

"She is too tall for him, they need to switch shoes. He needs to be wearing the high heels and she needs to be wearing the flats. He should be more like the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi and date schoolgirls."

Then it was the turn of the journalists to have fun poked at them. Turning to one reporter, Bruno shouted: "Hey! You look great! What's your name? You are so cute! Hey listen; try and stare in my eyes, not in my crotch. Let's try and be professional."

Bruno opens across cinemas in Europe in the first week of July.

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