[ 2014-01-17 ]

Hollande ‘abandoned Ms Trierweiler to holiday with Ms Gayet’

French President's affair ‘started two years ago’ says magazine
President Hollande’s affair with his mistress
began two years ago, according to the glossy
magazine that revealed their liaison last week.
In a fresh salvo of claims about the French
President, Closer said he had left Valérie
Trierweiler, his partner, to holiday with her sons
in Greece last summer.
He went himself to Tulle, the town in central
France that is his political base, where he met up
with Julie Gayet, 41, the actress and film
producer, according to the magazine.
The claim is a tacit rebuke to Ms Gayet, who is
suing Closer for breach of privacy over last
week’s revelations and demanding €50,000 in
damages.
The latest claims by the magazine show that Ms
Gayet’s writ is anything but a deterrent.
Closer also claims that Mr Hollande was introduced
to Ms Gayet by Ségolène Royal, the mother of his
four children, in 2011.
Ms Gayet, a left-wing activist, had backed Ms
Royal in 2007 when she was the Socialist Party’s
presidential election candidate.
Closer’s claims were called into question by
commenators who pointed out that Ms Royal’s
relations with Mr Hollande were frosty in 2011.
They had split up four years earlier when Mr
Hollande left Ms Royal for Ms Trierweiler.
The lunch-date between Mr Hollande and Ms Gayet
that is believed to have been the start of their
relationship is understood to have been organised
by Thomas Hollande, the President’s eldest son.
Joyce Jonathan, his girlfriend, is friends with Ms
Gayet.
The claims are fresh humiliation for Ms
Trierweiler, who is recovering in
Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris after
Closer disclosed her partner’s affair last
week.
She is officially suffering from exhaustion and
stress, but two French news magazines have
reported that she took an overdose of pills after
learning that Closer was about to publish
photographs of Mr Hollande’s new relationship.
The magazine quotes Muriel Vite, a local radio
journalist, as saying that she saw Mr Hollande
with Ms Gayet and Thierry Chèze, a film critic,
in the market in Tulle while Ms Trierweiler, his
unmarried partner, was in Greece
They had been to a concert by Olivia Ruiz, a pop
star who is a friend of Ms Gayet, it was
reported.
Closer says that Mr Hollande’s romance began two
years ago during the French presidential election
campaign of 2012. Ms Gayet, a Socialist Party
supporter, often attended his meetings “and
their relations became more intimate”.
The magazine also says that Mr Hollande and Ms
Gayet dined in a restaurant in Mougins in southern
France, Au Cabaret de Saint Pétersbourg, on the
weekend of September 28.
The report comes with both camps briefing
journalists about their side of the relationship.
Mr Hollande’s aides suggest that his concern is
to avoid letting his private affairs interfere
with his job.
They have been telling French journalists that he
wants to avoid humiliating his partner further.
Although Mr Hollande has not yet visited Ms
Trierweiler in hospital, he has telephoned her and
sent text messages, according to sources close to
him.
Ms Trierweiler’s camp has been telling
journalists that if Mr Hollande has not paid her a
visit, it is because doctors have banned him from
doing so.
She is seeking to suggest that her relationship
with him is not over, and that she is willing to
forgive him.
Voici, another glossy magazine, today published
photographs which it said were of Ms Royal paying
a visit to Ms Trierweiler in hospital. The
photographs attracted attention in Paris given
that the two women have always been seen as
rivals.
Ms Royal denied that she had paid a visit to Ms
Trierweiler.

Source - The Times(UK)

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