How France’s philandering President sent 29 texts A DAY to win back the First Lady he cheated
. . . even when he was meant to be meeting Obama and Putin
laughing. I scowled at them. Their behaviour struck me as inappropriate, and I said as much.
Raising his voice, Francois swore he’d never take me on an official visit ever again.
Back home, as his poll ratings went into freefall, he started blaming me for anything and everything.
As a friend put it: ‘It seems to me that his l ove is l i nked to his popularity ratings.’
Certainly, with each new poll, his attitude towards me would harden a little. He needed someone to blame for his fall in popularity, so I’d become his lightning rod.
When unemployment soared, I had to bear the consequences. With every factory closure, every piece of bad news for the government, he became increasingly distant and cutting. Everything I did was wrong — down to the Elysee menus (which he chose) and the bread that was never fresh enough.
Meanwhile, outside politics, Francois was interested in nothing. Nothing and no one. He wasn’t interested in literature and just as indifferent to theatre and music. He never read a single one of the book reviews I wrote for Paris-Match.
Little wonder that I found myself becoming envious of his closeness to political journalists. Incredibly, he was on texting terms with more than 70 of them.
Yet I’d once been a political journalist — until I’d given up my job for the sake of Francois’s career. And now, it seemed, my views counted for nothing. JuNE 2014. As if to rub salt into my wounds, Francois continues to harass me with text messages.
He says he’s prepared to issue a public apology to me. I don’t believe him. I no longer believe any of his promises. Today, I hear that Closer magazine is about to run a frontpage story revealing that Francois is still seeing Julie Gayet in secret. Can it be true?
He immediately sends me a text message swearing that the story is a complete fabrication. This time, he assures me, he isn’t lying.
I scroll through my phone and find his loving messages from yesterday, in which he promises he’ll go with me wherever I go, that all he wants is to live with me again.
What should I believe? This whole situation is becoming insane. It’s all smoke and mirrors — and completely impossible to separate the lies from the truth.
Francois doesn’t give up. In between one meal with Barack Obama and another with Vladimir Putin, he finds the time to text again, assuring me that I’m the love of his life.
Whether he’s telling the truth about seeing Gayet again or not, I don’t know. But this latest development helps me realise that he’ll never change. His readiness to tell fibs has become a deep-rooted part of his personality.
As the psychiatrist who treated me after my overdose told me: ‘Powerful men soon lose any sense of limits.’
SuMMER 2014. Rumours are ci r culating t hat Hollande and Gayet will soon make their relationship official. Francois makes the first move — by text message — swearing for the umpteenth time that the affair is over and the girl means nothing to him.
I’ve heard it all before, this tune that unfaithful men have been singing since the dawn of time.
For the third time, he promises he’ll publicly deny he’s involved with the actress. But he never does.
Today, I counted up the number of texts he sent me yesterday. Twenty-nine! All through Friday, despite his timed-to-the minute schedule, the president was busily composing messages to me.
They all say the same thing in different ways: he wants me back. My answer is invariably the same: he crushed me, he put me down and did nothing to put me back on my feet.
I’ve decided to stop answering his texts. But I don’t know which of us is suffering more.
He tries to find out how I am, through friends or through my youngest son, whom he still sees. He wants to know what I’m up to, who I meet, what I think.
Most surprising of all, he’s even making the effort to read my book reviews in Paris-Match. This is the man who didn’t even know the name of the TV show I presented for a while!
By resisting all his attempts to win me over, I’m clearly gaining market value in the eyes of a man whose motivation is to conquer.
A few weeks ago, Francois actually asked me to marry him. But it’s too late. You don’t get married merely to make amends.
Sometimes, I miss him; I miss our love, our carefree passion, the hours when everything seemed easy, when the air was easier to breathe.
But the past never returns. Or when it does, it’s in painful bursts that threaten to crush me.
There have been too many lies, too many betrayals, too much cruelty. Why would I risk going through any of that again? It’s time to move on.
AdApted from thank You For this Moment: A Story Of Love, power And Betrayal by Valerie trierweiler to be published on November 25 by Biteback, priced £18.99. to order a copy for £15.19 (p&p free for limited time), visit mailbookshop.co.uk Offer price valid until November 25.