French First Lady Carla Bruni came in for withering criticism from the right-wing daily Il Giornale on Friday for snubbing the official programme for Group of Eight spouses.

"Someone tell the first lady that snobbery to the nth degree where we come from is called boorishness," the paper said as the G8 summit was wrapping up in L'Aquila, central Italy.

On Thursday, the other G8 first ladies including Michelle Obama toured the city devastated by an April 6 earthquake, while Bruni planned to visit the disaster zone on Friday.

Bruni, who arrived in Italy late Thursday, also stayed away from the first ladies' audience with Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday.

The wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy "insinuates that the G8 is a hypocritical display, and that a G1 would be enough, with Carla Bruni as the only guest, the best on the earth since the death of Mother Teresa," raged the newspaper, owned by the brother of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

"Of course we should recognise that Carla has always been very attentive to the needs of the disadvantaged... but then if you act like that, even charity stinks," wrote editorialist Federico Novella. "It stinks... of the uncontrollable desire to be the centre of attention."

Bruni-Sarkozy is a global ambassador for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. She appealed to G8 leaders in an article in Britain's Guardian newspaper on Wednesday to maintain support for health programmes in Africa amid the global downturn.

As a parting shot, Novella added: "And seeing that the G8 seems to have gone smoothly, we take the opportunity to ask her something: 'Excuse me, how do you say party-pooper in French?'"