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Hollande pays visit to 'first lady' in hospital

Sophie Inge
Sophie Inge - [email protected]
Hollande pays visit to 'first lady' in hospital
File photo of François Hollande and Valerie Trierweiler. The French resident finally visited the 'first lady' on Thursday night. Photo: Jean-Pierr Muller/AFP

President François Hollande has visited Valérie Trierweiler, the Elysée said on Friday, almost a week after she was admitted to hospital after news of his alleged affair hit the headlines. On Friday Closer magazine published another exposé on the president's alleged 'affair'.

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President François Hollande paid his first visit on Thursday night to his 'first lady,' six days after she was hospitalized following media reports he'd been having an affair with an actress.

The visit, confirmed by Elysée Palace in a statement, came after numerous media reports claimed Hollande had not visited Valérie Trierweiler since the story of his alleged affair with Julie Gayet broke on January 10th. Until then the couple had been communicating by phone and text message, reports in Le Parisien said.

France's RTL radio reported Hollande had stayed away on the orders of Trierweiler's doctors.

However the Elysée Palace said on Friday that the president had been to see Trierweiler at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital where she has been receiving treatment for "extreme nervous fatigue".

Closer magazine, which published the original story, ran a second exposé on Friday in which the publication claimed the alleged affair between Hollande and Gayet had in fact been going on for two years - before Hollande became President.

According to the magazine’s latest “revelations”, which came just a day after Gayet launched a lawsuit against Closer for breach of privacy, the pair met during the 2012 electoral campaign.

Moreover, the magazine also claims there was a “second apartment where they met” in the west of the French capital, as well as the apartment on Rue du Cirque in the city’s 8th arrondissement. 

In the summer of 2013, it claims, Hollande’s unofficial first lady Valérie Trierweiler apparently spent a holiday alone in Greece while Hollande went to Tulle to be with Gayet. There, the magazine says, he attended a concert of Julie Gayet’s friend Olivia Ruiz.

“The next day, the couple went for a walk in front of everyone”, the magazine wrote.

With tales of “break-ups and reconciliations”, the magazine describes their apparent relationship as a “turbulent romance”.

SEE ALSO: Who is Julie Gayet? Ten things to know about the actress?

The revelations come a week after the gossip magazine published a seven-page spread about the alleged affair.

On Thursday, Closer revealed that it had received official confirmation that actress Julie Gayet has launched a lawsuit for breach of privacy over its seven-page report of the alleged affair. She is demanding €50,000 in damages. 

Closer confirmed it had received the legal notification but has so far declined to comment, Le Figaro reported.

Intially, President François Hollande had suggested he too would be suing Closer magazine for a breach of his privacy, but in a high profile press conference this week, Hollande backtracked.

The head of state pointed to the fact that as president he was immune from being sued and suggested it would not be right if he were to then launch legal proceedings against someone else.

He did reaffirm his outrage over Closer's "attack on his private life".

 

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