French stars break up in public

She is one of France's most beautiful women and its most reclusive film star. He is the king of synthesised pop music, an eccentric composer whose records sell by the million.

The relationship between Isabelle Adjani and Jean-Michel Jarre has been eagerly followed across the Channel ever since the pair took the unusual step in 2002 of allowing Paris Match magazine to announce their plans to marry.

But now Paris Match has been pressed into service again: this time by Adjani, the star of Camille Claudel and La Reine Margot, who has ended her relationship with Jarre in spectacular fashion.

The actress used the front cover of the magazine to break off her relationship, denouncing the musician as an unfaithful liar. "La rupture avec Jean-Michel Jarre" is splashed across the front.

"Je le quitte!" the tempestuous star announced. "I believed him and I was mistaken. I discovered his liaison with an actress thanks to watertight evidence, which shattered me.

"No, I am not getting married in August and tant mieux! [so much the better for that]."

Connoisseurs of such public rifts will remember that Adjani, 49, was dumped by fax by Daniel Day-Lewis in 1996, when she was seven months pregnant by the Last Of The Mohicans actor. Was this a very public revenge on men?

Now the diva of French cinema has caused agonised hand-wringing over the intrusion by the media into the private lives of celebrities. French media commentators are appalled and see the move as a step towards the world of the British "gutter press", as it is known. Reporting on showbusiness stars in France usually stops at the bedroom door.

The scandal has also dragged in Charlotte Rampling, the British actress who was married to Jarre for more than 20 years, and Anne Parillaud, the star of Luc Besson's Nikita. Adjani did not name the other woman in her husband's life, but other media quickly pointed the finger at 44-year-old Parillaud.

Mischievously, Adjani said that Jarre's infidelities were the cause of a depression which Rampling suffered at the time the couple separated. Jarre's relationship with Adjani was said by friends to have finally broken the marriage.

Jarre, 55, whose records Oxygene and Equinox have sold 25 million copies, was working in London when he heard what Adjani had done.

Adjani has been an enthusiastic issuer of writs, taking advantage of France's tough privacy laws. But now her actions have prompted a scolding from Pascale Clark, a commentator on French radio.

"OK - you want to use the press to hang out your dirty washing," Clark said. "But do not count on our sympathy the next time that you want to complain that your private life has been violated."