French President Accused Of Affair

French president accused of affair

ALLEGED INFIDELITY: French magazine Closer said President Francois Hollande was having an affair with actress Julie Gayet

He threatens legal action against magazine over 'attack on his right to privacy'

A magazine reported yesterday that Mr Francois Hollande routinely rides a scooter to spend the night with an actress, an alleged affair that has created yet another headache for the unpopular French President.

The allegations were accompanied by photos reportedly showing the President entering the flat of French actress Juile Gayet.

   Mr Hollande, 59, who lives with his partner, Ms Valerie Trierweiler, a journalist, reacted furiously to the allegation, but did not deny it, and he threatened legal action over what he called an attack on his right to privacy.

   Closer's Friday edition carried a seven-page spread on the President's alleged infidelity under the headline, Francois Hollande And Julie Gayet - The President's Secret Love.

   "It's a real passion that has...turned their lives upside down and makes them take insane risks," the magazine wrote.

   To back up its claims, the magazine printed photos of Ms Gayet, 41, arriving at a flat in an upmarket part of Paris on Dec 30, not far from the Elysee palace where Mr Hollande lives.

   Half an hour later, a man whom they identifed as Mr Hollande's bodyguard inspects the hallway of the apartment block before the arrival of a scooter with two helmeted men on board, one of whom they say is Mr Hollande, although his face is never revealed.

   But the bodyguard does show his face and is identified as part of Mr Hollande's official security detail, AFP reported.

   The next morning, the bodyguard delivers croissants to the couple, Closer reported.

HELMETED MAN

Three hours later, a helmeted man is pictured mounting a chauffeur-driven scooter.

   In a statement to AFP, Mr Hollande slammed the report as an attack on the right to privacy, to which he "like every other citizen has a right".

   He said he was "looking into possible action, including legal action", against the weekly magazine.

   Rumours that Mr Hollande is having an affair with Ms Gayet have swirled for months. Ms Gayet, a mother of two, is separated from Argentinian film-maker Santiago Amigorena.

   Mr Hollande left his previous partner, and the mother of his four children, fellow Socialist politician Segolene Royal, in 2007 for Ms Trierweiler. Ms Trierweiler, whom Mr Hollande described as "the love of my life" in 2010, is referred to in the US media as "the first girlfriend".

   Ms Gayet, an established television and film actress, appeared in one of Mr Hollande's 2012 election campaign commercials, in which she described the then candidate as "marvellous" but also "humble and a really good listener".

   If confirmed, Mr Hollande's alleged affair would perpetuate a long French tradition of philandering presidents and senior politicians.

   Former president Jacques Chirac is believed to have had many extramarital conquests, as did his predecessor Francois Mitterrand, who even had a daughter with his mistress.

Rumoured affair turns messy for Hollande

Girlfriend rushed to hospital; political foes start capitalising on his problems

PARIS : French President Francois Hollande's political and personal woes deepened after it emerged that his girlfriend had been rushed to hospital following a report he was having an affair with an actress.

   Ms Valerie Trierweiler, who lives with the President in the Elysee Palace, his official residence, was admitted to hospital last Friday "for a rest and to undergo some tests", aides said. Her office declined to say when she would be discharged.

   Closer magazine reported in its edition published last Friday that Mr Hollande, 59, has been having an affair with actress Julie Gayet, 41.

   The weekly glossy printed photos which it claimed showed Gayet and Mr Hollande arriving separately at a flat near the presidential Elysee Palace for secret trysts.

   Mr Hollande would reportedly arrive at the flat on a chauffeur-driven scooter, and had fresh croissants delivered to the love nest in the mornings by his personal bodyguards.

   The Socialist leader has slammed Closer's report as an outrageous attack on his right to a private life, and said he is considering legal action. But he has not denied the substance of the magazine's claims of a passionate affair which pushed him and Gayet to take "insane risks".

   French media reaction to the Closer report had largely been subdued, and a poll published on Sunday suggested that more than three-quarters of French voters think the President's love life is nobody's business but his own.

   But any hopes Mr Hollande harboured of riding out the storm were shattered as opposition MPs started to try and make political capital out of his embarrassment.

   Mr Jean-Francois Cope, the leader of the centre-right UMP, said Mr Hollande was holding the presidential office up to ridicule, and questioned his judgement.

   "You only have to read the international press. When they talk about France at the moment, it is either about this affair or about (anti-Semitic comedian) Dieudonne," Mr Cope said.

   Another UMP deputy, Mr Daniel Fasquelle, questioned whether it was "normal" for Ms Trierweiler, who has her own personal staff within the Elysee, to be financed by taxpayers while Mr Hollande was carrying on with other women. "The French may ask themselves: Who is now the first lady of France?" Mr Fasquelle said in a tweet.

   Ms Trierweiler, 48, is a glamorous, twice-divorced career journalist who has three children of her own, and has been Mr Hollande's partner for the best part of a decade.

   Exactly when they became a couple is unclear, but most accounts of his turbulent love life concur that he left Ms Segolene Royal, a fellow heavyweight in the Socialist Party and the mother of his four children, in 2005.

   In public, he was still pretending to be with Ms Royal two years later when she ran unsuccessfully as the Socialists' presidential candidate.

   Biographers claim he dithered for months over which woman he should be with, and the charge of chronic indecisiveness is one that has returned to haunt him in office as he has slumped to the lowest approval ratings of any French leader in living memory.

   The only bright note for him is that pollsters do not see the suggestion that he may have been cheating on his long-term girlfriend as having any impact on his standing with the electorate.

   "In fact, he is already so unpopular that this will not change anything." Mr Frederic Dabi of pollsters Ifop told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

   Mr Hollande is due to give an extended press conference today, at which he is expected to elaborate on a New Year message that has been interpreted as signalling a change of direction by his government towards more business-friendly policies.

   That event now looks certain to be overshadowed by the turmoil in his private life.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S WOMEN

Ms Royal, who had four children with Mr Hollande, current partner Trierweller and actress Gayet, said to be the latest woman in the French leader's life.

PRESIDENT Francois Hollande, 59, who has never married, was involved for some 23 years with Ms Segolene Royal, 60 a political heavyweight in his Socialist Party. The two, who met at a university party, have four children.

   He strongly supported her unsuccessful presidential bid in 2007, and they appeared together as a couple throughout the race before splitting right after.

   He left her for Ms Valerie Trierweiler, 48, a journalist for the magazine Paris Match who has acted as France's first lady since his election in 2012.

   She had boldly declared that she intended to redefine the role of first lady to the point that they would have to come up with an alternative term.

   An appearance in spiky high heels and a thigh-revealing dress prompted Britain's Daily Mail to exclaim that Ms Trierweller was the real star attraction in the couple, the epitome of the "effortless Parisian chic that makes French women the envy of the world".

   But her feisty temperament soon got her into hot water: She tweeted her support for a candidnate in a legislative election against Ms Royal, who had received the backing of Mr Hollande. That incident caused a minor political scandal.

   A string of acticles and books have portrayed her as a jealous, tempestuous personality who keeps Mr Hollande on a tight leash, and polls suggest two-thirds of voters have a negative opinion of her.

   Last Friday, Closer magazine reported that Mr Hollande has been having an affair with actress Julie Gayet, 41, a mother of two.

   Last year, she starred in Quai d'Orsay, in which she plays a vampish diplomatic adviser in the Foreign Ministry. Her filmography includes the titles Shall We Kiss? and My Best Friend.

   She is a Socialist Party activist who had expressed gushing support for the "humble"  and "wonderful" Mr Hollande before the 2012 election.

francoise holland is a joke