Former French first lady tells of suicide bid

HOLLANDE’S EX- PARTNER SAYS SHE TRIED TO TAKE LARGE DOSE OF SLEEPING PILLS

Journalist Valerie Trierweiler attempted to swallow a large dose of sleeping pills after learning that her partner, the French president, Francois Hollande, was having an affair with another woman.

In a book published last Thursday, France’s former first lady said shewas stunned and horrified and “just wanted to sleep” after being told of the Hollande’s relationship with actor Julie Gayet. In her explosive book, Merci Pour Ce Moment ( Thank You for the Moment), Trierweiler, 49, describes howshe and the president tussled over a plastic bag containing the pills.

She also reveals that after the split, Hollande, 60, sent her flowers and affectionate text messages for months, vowing to win her back.

Extracts fromthe 330- page book, released by independent publisher Les Arnes and printed abroad amid tight secrecy, were published in Paris

Match yesterday. Hollande was reportedly unaware that Trierweiler was writing an account of her seven months at the Elysee Palace.

Moment she cracked

In it, Trierweiler, whoworks for Paris Match, revealed how she learnt that Hollande was seeing Gayet, 42, after paparazzi photographs of him visiting her apartment on a scooter appeared in January on the front page of the celebrity magazine Closer. Until that moment, she says, Hollande had sworn that rumours of the affair were “nonsense”.

“The news about Julie Gayet was headlining the morning news I cracked. I couldn’t listen to it. I rushed into the bathroom. I grabbed a small plastic bag containing sleeping pills,” she writes.

“Francois followed me. He tried to snatch the bag. I ran into the bedroom. He grabbed the bag and it split. The pills scattered over the bed and the ground. I managed to recover some of them. I swallowed what I could. I wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to live the hours that would follow. I felt the storm that would break over me and I didn’t have the strength to fight it. I lost consciousness.”

Trierweiler was taken to hospital and spent a week “resting”, at the end of which Hollande announced that she was “no longer part of his life”.

However, the journalist says he sent her text messages for months after the split.

“He said he needed me. Each evening he asked me to have dinner with him. He said hewanted to getme back whatever the price. He saidhe would win me back as if I was an election,” she writes.

The publication of the book will dismay the president whose popularity dropped another four points thisweek.