A heated passion, a tumultuous break-up and a desperate bid at reconciliation: for the first time, France’s former first lady spills the beans about her tempestuous relationship with President Francois Hollande.
In a kiss-and-tell memoir, written and published in the utmost secrecy, Valerie Trierweiler charts the highs and lows of her time with Hollande, whose popularity is already at historic lows and who could suffer further embarrassment from the new revelations.
In extracts published on Wednesday by glossy magazine Paris-Match, Trierweiler describes the bust-up in the presidential bedroom when news broke of Hollande’s affair with actress Julie Gayet. “I crack up. I don’t want to hear that, I rush into the bathroom. I grab the little plastic bag with the sleeping pills,” she recounts in an episode run in the magazine.