A doctor running hospitals in Cambodia has refused a donation raised by the sale of a nude photograph of France's first la, Carla Bruni.

Swiss paediatrician Beat Richner, head of a children's medical care group, rejected an offer of $US91,000 ($NZ115,060) after the New York auction last week of the 1993 picture of Italian ex-model Carla Bruni, now married to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In Cambodia, money obtained from exploitation of the female body "would be perceived as an insult".                   

He did not wish his institution, the Kantha Bopha Children's Hospital Association, "to be involved in the media exploitation of Madame Bruni".

The cash will now go to a Swiss research institute developing recycling of used water into fresh drinking water in poor countries. // The Dominion Post