AFP/Mexico City

French President Francois Hollande has arrived in Mexico City for a trip aimed at renewing relations that were rocked by the case of a Frenchwoman accused of kidnapping.
Hollande landed in the Mexican capital late Wednesday for a two-day state visit that will include talks with President Enrique Pena Nieto, a visit to pre-Hispanic pyramids and a tour of French aviation industry factories in central Mexico.
But before his trip had even started, a tweet by his jilted former partner Valerie Trierweiler supporting a woman who says her Mexican ex-husband abducted their children threatened to throw a spanner in the works.
Trierweiler, who had kept a low profile since Hollande dumped her earlier this year after revelations he had an affair with an actress, tweeted her support for Maude Versini “who has not seen her three children for 847 days, held by their father in Mexico.”
“Let’s help her. @francediplo must act,” she said in the tweet, referring to the name of the Twitter account of France’s foreign ministry.
Versini’s ex-husband is Arturo Montiel, a powerful politician who is close to Pena Nieto, with whom Hollande met yesterday.
Montiel was included in Forbes’ list of the 10 most corrupt Mexicans last year, with the magazine saying he dropped out of the presidential race in 2005 “following allegations of millionaire mansions and bank transactions in Mexico and France.”
In a radio interview yesterday, Versini said her husband “does not hesitate to use all his influence, to buy out judges, he is scared of nothing and feels he is above the law.”
It is unclear whether Hollande will bring up the sensitive issue with Pena Nieto, but what is certain is that the two countries will sign 30 agreements during the visit in fields ranging from aerospace to energy, security and education.
“It is a very important visit. It is a great reunion between Mexico and France,” Mexican Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos de Icaza told reporters on Tuesday. French officials say a key part of the trip will be to turn the page for good on the strains caused by the arrest of Florence Cassez in 2005, when different governments were in power in both nations.
The Frenchwoman was sentenced to 60 years in prison over her alleged involvement with a gang of kidnappers that was led by her ex-boyfriend.
Relations reached a low in February 2011, when Mexican authorities pulled out of a “Year of Mexico” cultural event in France after then-president Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to dedicate it to Cassez, angering his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon. After seven years behind bars, Cassez was released and returned to France in January 2013 when the Supreme Court ruled that police had violated her rights by broadcasting her arrest on national television.