They have always been seen as a nation of lovers, happy to give in to their passions and turn a blind eye to the indiscretions of others. But the latest revelations about the sexual goings-on at the top of their political establishment have shattered the usual French sangfroid. It emerged on Friday that the First Lady, [...]

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French President shared mistress with Sarkozy minister

By Peter Allen
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They have always been seen as a nation of lovers, happy to give in to their passions and turn a blind eye to the indiscretions of others. But the latest revelations about the sexual goings-on at the top of their political establishment have shattered the usual French sangfroid.

It emerged on Friday that the First Lady, Valerie Trierweiler, had been at the centre of an astonishing ‘menage a six’.

Miss Trierweiler, it was revealed, had been the shared mistress of Francois Hollande, now the country’s Socialist president, and a married conservative minister, Patrick Devedjian.

Socialist president Francois Hollande

French first lady Valerie Trierweiler

Politician Patrick Devedjian

Not only that, but she was still married to her husband at the time. And more controversially still, Mr Hollande was at the time living with Segolene Royal, the mother of his four children and a senior Socialist politician in her own right.

This is the first time that details of 47-year-old Miss Trierweiler’s passionate affair with Right-winger Mr Devedjian, now 68, have been made public.

She was sleeping with Mr Devedjian at the same time as seeing Left-winger Mr Hollande, now 58. Miss Trierweiler frequently asked Mr Devedjian, who is still a senior member of the opposition UMP coalition, to leave his wife of more than 30 years for her, and when he refused she concentrated her affections on Mr Hollande.

Incredibly, Mr Devedjian and Mr Hollande both knew they were sleeping with the same mistress, and developed ‘a great respect for each other’.

Details of the complicated affairs are contained in La Frondeuse (The Rebellious One), an unauthorised biography of Miss Trierweiler by the French political writers Christophe Jakubyszyn and Alix Bouilhaguet, which comes out today.
They were also publicised across France, with respected newspapers including Le Figaro and broadcasters carrying the story.
In an interview with French magazine Point Of View, Mr Jakubyszyn said Mr Devedjian and Miss Trierweiler enjoyed ‘an intimate relationship which lasted a number of years. At the time, both of them were married. They hesitated in making the big jump, to change their life.

‘Patrick Devedjian dilly-dallied so much that Valerie Trierweiler was left to be seduced by a second man from another political side – Francois Hollande.’

Mr Jakubyszyn, who also presents a political programme on French television, said that ‘little by little, the relationship with Hollande took over the other one’.

In 2003 Miss Trierweiler gave Mr Devedjian ‘an ultimatum’ to leave his wife, Sophie, an army general’s daughter with whom he has four children. But Mr Devedjian ‘would not give in’ and leave Sophie, whom he had married in 1969, said Mr Jakubyszyn.
Miss Trierweiler was at the time married to her second husband, her fellow Paris Match magazine journalist Denis Trierweiler, with whom she has three sons.

The Trierweiler divorce was not applied for until 2007, before being sealed in 2010, meaning Miss Trierweiler would effectively have been seeing at least three men at one stage.

Mr Jakubyszyn said that Mr Hollande and Mr Devedjian – who he said ‘maintained a great respect for each other’ – were at one stage general secretaries of their respective parties. Miss Trierweiler, who was a political affairs reporter while sleeping with the two men, would have accordingly been party to some intriguing pillow talk from across the political spectrum.
Mr Hollande did not ‘officially’ break up with Miss Royal until after she unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 2007.
The pair regularly paraded themselves as a couple up until this year, but it is now clear that Mr Hollande had taken Miss Trierweiler as a mistress many years before.

Mr Devedjian is a close personal friend of Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative UMP president who was defeated by Mr Hollande in the May presidential election. Since then, Miss Trierweiler – nicknamed ‘Valerie Rottweiler’ and ‘First Concubine’ by the French media – has become one of the most unpopular first ladies in recent history.

In June, she sent a Twitter message encouraging voters to support a rival to Miss Royal in parliamentary elections. Miss Royal went on to lose the election and since then neither she, nor her four children with Mr Hollande, have spoken to Miss Trierweiler, accusing her of a ‘stab in the back’.

The mutual loathing between Miss Royal and Miss Trierweiler is regularly highlighted in the French media, especially because Mr Hollande’s live-in lover has her own office at the grand presidential Elysee Palace, while Miss Royal does not even have a parliamentary seat.

A lawyer for Miss Trierweiler last night said she was planning to sue the authors of the book for breaking France’s strict privacy laws, and for defamation. There was no specific denial of any of the allegations contained in La Frondeuse, but her barrister Frederique Giffard instead said that the entire book was a collection of ‘author assertions backed by unproven rumours’, all aimed at ‘maliciously tarnishing’ Miss Trierweiler and her family.

© Daily Mail, London

French politician sues over first lady’s lover claims

Paris (AFP) – A right-wing politician is to sue the authors of a book on French first lady Valerie Trierweiler that claims she had an affair with him while also seeing the current Socialist president, his office said Thursday.

Patrick Devedjian, who was a minister under ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, is suing the authors of “La Frondeuse” (The Rebel) for libel and breach of privacy.

The announcement came a day after the first lady herself said, through her lawyer, that she plans to sue the authors of this latest book about her because it spreads malicious rumours.

The work by journalists Christophe Jakubyszyn and Alix Bouilhaguet claims that Trierweiler was having affairs with both Francois Hollande, who was elected president in May, and Devedjian, while she was still married to a third man.
It says that Trierweiler, now 47, was seeing Devedjian in the early 2000s but that Hollande, who at the time was living with Segolene Royal, muscled in when Devedjian refused to commit to her.

Trierweiler’s lawyer said the book was based on a collection of “author assertions backed by unproven rumours”.
“La Frondeuse” is the latest in a string of works on Trierweiler that have appeared since Hollande was elected, speculating on intense rivalry between Royal and the first lady.

According to the accounts, Hollande first became enamoured of Trierweiler back in the 1980s and they were already a couple in 2007, although he publicly pretended to be still with Royal when she ran unsuccessfully for president that year.




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