On the night of his election, President François Hollande called his companion Valérie Trierweiler “the love of my life”. Ms Trierweiller (48) was admitted to hospital on Friday, her cabinet at the Élysée acknowledged yesterday.
Officially France's "first lady," although she and Mr Hollande are not married, Ms Trierweiler was reportedly distraught over a seven-page report on his "secret love" with actor Julie Gayet (41) published by Closer magazine.
Longtime companion
The Élysée said the longtime companion of the 59-year-old president was hospitalised "for rest and a few exams". Some reports said she would be discharged today. Meanwhile, the president's staff met Ms Trierweiler's team to negotiate the outcome of the soap opera that seized France with the publication of the Closer article on Friday. Both sides are said to be eager to "clarify" the situation rapidly, if possible before Mr Hollande's press conference tomorrow. The press conference has been repeatedly postponed since mid-November.
“The question is whether Valérie Trierweiler can remain at the Élysée,” the political journalist Catherine Nay said on Europe 1 radio. Alluding to Ms Trierweiler’s past conflict with Ségolène Royal, her predecessor in Mr Hollande’s affections, Ms Nay said, “She was jealous of the past, but she would have done better to be jealous of the future.”
Jean-François Kahn, also a prominent political commentator, said that “If [Mr Hollande] had dumped [Ms Trierweiler] when she did the tweet, people would have applauded and said, ‘What a man!’”
In June 2012, Ms Trierweiler advised voters to support Ms Royal’s opponent in legislative elections. Informed sources say it was the turning point in her relationship with Mr Hollande.
In an appearance on France 2 television yesterday, which had been scheduled before the story broke, Ms Royal offered advice to Mr Hollande and Ms Trierweiler, saying they should “turn the page and get back to work”.
Third autobiography
The alleged presidential affair has also taken a toll on Santiago Amigorena, the estranged husband of Ms Gayet. By chance, the publication of Mr Amigorena's third autobiographical novel, Days I Have Not Forgotten, coincided with the revelations in the magazine. "He opens the window and thinks of jumping," is its first line.
The narrator of the novel, a writer who is married to an actor with whom he has two sons, learns that she has left him for another man, an actor in the book. Elle magazine calls the scarcely veiled account of Mr Amigorena's failed marriage to Ms Gayet "an overwhelming tale of the end of a fusional love and the taming of grief by a narrator in a state of stupefaction".
Mr Amigorena left Argentina at the age of 11. He married Ms Gayet in 2003. They have two sons, Tadéo (15), and Ezéchiel (13).
The couple, who have not divorced, separated in 2012, the year Ms Gayet made a campaign video for Mr Hollande.
At the request of Ms Gayet's lawyer, Closer agreed to remove all references to her alleged affair with Mr Hollande from its website. The initial print-run of 600,000 copies sold out on Friday and the magazine re-printed on Saturday.
The magazine sales are seemingly contradicted by a poll conducted for the Journal du Dimanche, in which 77 per cent of those surveyed said the story was "a private affair which concerns only François Hollande"; 84 per cent said their opinion of him had not changed; 13 per cent said they had a worse opinion of him than before and just 3 per cent had a better opinion.
