Carla Bruni will be back on stage at the Opéra Garnier Monte-Carlo on November 29, after having already performed here in 2013.

Talking about her new album, due out on October 6, Bruni recalls a conversation with songwriter David Foster.

”Have you ever thought of singing in English?,” he asked her in the spring of 2014, after a concert she had just given in Los Angeles.

Sing in English? Carla Bruni had already done so on her second album, No Promises (2005), putting to music the verses of Dorothy Parker and Anglo-Saxon poets of the romantic era. For the songwriter, the question was rather about her legitimacy to write in the language of Lou Reed. David Foster, also president of Verve – the American label of the French singer – insisted and then proposed to record a cover album.

After a long hesitation, Carla Bruni agreed.

While the French Touch generally describes Parisian electronic music of the 2000s, the term also has a wider meaning: it is an effortless elegance, a light sensuality, a “je ne sais quoi”. And on her new album, she gives even the most American of the pop hymns – songs that seem as far away from France as the Sunset Strip – this touch.

Of course, Foster’s arrangement has, according to Carla Bruni, brought “something grandiose to the music”. Melodic, warm but minimalist and often filled with malice, the cover songs have retained the universal charm of the original, while bringing a touch of sensuality, almost as if Carla Bruni and David Foster had written them themselves.

The French Touch album, scheduled for release on October 6, extends from rock classics (“A Perfect Day” by Lou Reed among others) to the old standards (“Moon River”, “Love Hurts , “Crazy”), but all the pieces share a particular quality, as Carla Bruni describes so accurately: “intimacy.”

READ MORE: Depardieu on stage at Opera Garnier next month