Hollande under fresh scrutiny

AFP/Reuters/Paris

In its latest revelations about a saga that has made headlines around the world, Closer magazine said Hollande had been introduced to Julie Gayet, 41, during campaigning, fell for her immediately and “relations quickly became more intimate”.

The latest edition of the glossy weekly hit stands as Hollande’s office confirmed that he had visited his official partner, Valerie Trierweiler, for the first time since she was hospitalised in the wake of the affair revelations.

Hollande visited Trierweiler at a Paris hospital on Thursday evening, six days after she was admitted, a spokesman told AFP.

His failure to visit earlier had helped to fuel speculation that he has decided to end the relationship with Trierweiler, for whom he left Segolene Royal, the mother of his four children, in 2005.

Hollande has said that he will clarify the position of France’s de facto First Lady before a trip to Washington next month but has refused any other comment on the scandal.

Trierweiler was initially due to have left Paris’ Pitie Salpetriere hospital last weekend.

Local media have quoted acquaintances of the former journalist saying she needs “peace and quiet” to recover from the shock of an episode that has made world headlines.

Gayet issued a statement late on Thursday to deny media reports she was pregnant.

Closer, which is being sued by Gayet for alleged breach of privacy, reported last week that she had been having secret trysts with the president and published photographs of the pair arriving separately at a borrowed flat near his official residence, the Elysee Palace.

Hours later, Trierweiler, was admitted to a Paris hospital where she remained yesterday after a week of treatment for symptoms described as including nervous exhaustion and low blood pressure.

In its follow-up story, Closer depicted Hollande’s romance with Gayet as much more than a brief fling, although it offered little in the way of concrete evidence and, unlike last week’s scoop, no pictures to back up its account.

The magazine said that the couple had also regularly met at another Paris apartment and at Gayet’s loft in eastern Paris, where she hosted frequent dinner parties for members of France’s artistic, intellectual and political elite.

According to Closer, the couple took a break from seeing each other in May of last year after Trierweiler confronted Hollande over rumours he was seeing the actress.

But by July, Hollande and Gayet had reportedly resumed their romance with the president entertaining the actress in Tulle, in his former parliamentary seat in the Correze region of central France, while Trierweiler was holidaying in Greece.

Another secret mini-break allegedly followed in September at Hollande’s holiday home at Mougins on the French Riviera.

Closer said on Thursday that Gayet was seeking damages of 50,000 euros on the grounds that the magazine’s first report on the affair represented an illegal breach of her privacy.

Hollande has not denied the magazine’s report and has ruled out any legal action on his own behalf.

If it is confirmed that Hollande did begin an affair with Gayet before his 2012 victory over Nicolas Sarkozy, it will mean he presented voters with a false image of his domestic set-up during the campaign when he was said to have found happiness with Trierweiler.

Closer’s revelations have also raised questions about whether Hollande’s nocturnal activities endangered his security, about his judgment and about whether he could have been distracted from doing his job.

Those issues have been given scant consideration in the mainstream media in France, which is traditionally reticent about prying into the private lives of public figures.

The affairs of recent presidents including Jacques Chirac and Valery Giscard d’Estaing were all covered up and Francois Mitterrand was elected twice without voters knowing he had a secret mistress and daughter.

The media scene in France however is being transformed by the Internet and the success of the gossip-based publications like Closer, which argue the public has a right to know what their leaders are up to behind closed doors.

Opponents of Hollande, whose failure to turn around the French economy has already made him the most unpopular leader of modern-day France, have accused him of bringing the role of president into disrepute.