French First Lady in hospital after reports of Hollande affair

Tuesday, 14 January 2014 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

PARIS, (Reuters): French first lady Valerie Trierweiler has been admitted to hospital following reports of an affair between President Francois Hollande and an actress, but will be discharged on Monday, sources said on Sunday. Daily newspaper Le Parisien said on its website earlier that Trierweiler, 48, had been taken to hospital after being shaken by a celebrity magazine’s reports of a liaison between her partner Hollande and French actress Julie Gayet. “She has been in hospital since Friday. She will leave tomorrow,” her spokesman Patrice Biancone told Reuters. Asked about the future of Trierweiler’s relationship with the president, Biancone said: “She needs rest. Then she will decide what to do.” A source at the Elysee declined to comment on Trierweiler’s hospitalisation and the magazine report. “The President is at work. He is preparing Tuesday’s news conference,” the source said. On Tuesday, Hollande will face the media in a traditional new year news conference that had been scheduled well before the reports of the affair broke. Hollande, who came to power in May 2012, is expected to announce new measures to boost the French economy, including lower charges for companies, cuts in public spending and a simplification of business regulation. Hollande and Trierweiler are scheduled to make a state visit to the United States in February and are set to attend a state dinner with President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle on 11 February. On Friday, Hollande, 59, threatened to sue celebrity magazine Closer, complaining of breach of privacy after it said he was having an affair with Gayet, 41. Closer published a series of photos of a woman resembling Gayet entering a Paris flat close to the Elysee presidential palace, followed by a man masked by a black motorcycle helmet who the magazine said was Hollande. Gayet, a mother of two, has dozens of film credits to her name but is little known outside France. Last year, she starred in “Quai d’Orsay”, in which she plays a vampish diplomatic adviser in the foreign ministry. In March last year she filed a complaint with the Paris prosecutor for breach of privacy over Internet rumours alleging she had a relationship with Hollande. Hollande and Trierweiler, a journalist for celebrity magazine Paris Match, are not married but have been in a long-term relationship for several years.