France’s former first lady yesterday broke her silence over the tempestuous end of her relationship with French President Francois Hollande, detailing her horrified reaction to the news that he was having an affair.
In a kiss-and-tell memoir written in secret and due to be published today, Valerie Trierweiler spills the beans on her relationship with Hollande and the painful and sudden break-up in January after a magazine revealed his affair with actress Julie Gayet.
“Everything I write is true,” she says on the cover of the book, called Thank You For This Moment, which is set to do little to improve the image of Hollande, already France’s least popular president in history according to opinion polls.
In extracts released by glossy magazine Paris-Match, the 49-year-old former journalist details the bust-up in the presidential bedroom when she realized she had been cheated on.
“The information on Julie Gayet is the top headline in the dailies... 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. “Francois follows me. He tries to snatch the bag. The pills spill over the bed and on the ground... I swallow what I can. I want to sleep. I don’t want to live through the coming hours.”
“I feel the storm about to break over me and I don’t have the strength to resist. I want to flee. I lost consciousness,” she continues.
The 320 page book “is a cry of love as well as a slow descent into hell, a plunge into the intimacy of a couple. Two people and nothing more: Valerie and Francois,” the weekly writes.
Hollande’s office said it was “not aware” of the book’s publication.
“So by definition we have not read this book,” a source close to Hollande told reporters.
The journalist met Hollande in the mid-2000s while he was in a relationship with Segolene Royal — herself a former presidential candidate — and the pair began a secret liaison.
Hollande subsequently left Royal, the mother of his four children, for Trierweiler, who became the de facto first lady of France after he was elected in 2012, despite the fact the pair were not married.
News of his affair with 42-year-old Gayet caused shockwaves in France in January, and Trierweiler was hospitalized for a week after Closer published pictures of Hollande arriving for secret trysts with the actress at a borrowed flat.
Hollande then announced his relationship with Trierweiler was over in an 18-word statement that was devoid of regret or remorse for the woman he had described as “the love of my life” in 2010.
“Eighteen words is almost one word for each month we spent together since he was elected,” Trierweiler told Le Parisien daily in January, describing herself as “more disappointed than hurt.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese