That is why, five years later, I had to call the shop owners to tell them that I would be starting full-time employment on 1 August, but that I was prepared to work for them throughout July. They agreed – they were happy for me, and proud of me. Over the years, they have become real friends – more than that, in fact: they are family to me. I owe them a lot. I never lost touch with them. They came to see me at the Élysée Palace, intimidated to see me there, thirty years after working as a sales assistant in their shop.
When August came around, I became increasingly anxious. Would I be up to the task of being a journalist? No, I would never be good enough. I was interested in politics, but I was no expert. We did not yet have a full team. The office was empty.
We assembled the IKEA desks ourselves. I needed to improve my IT skills – I had never owned a computer. I learned fast. We were able to start work on a ‘zero issue’. Then came the first issue, the launch issue. I was lucky enough to get a scoop. Secret plans to hold grouped elections, which the then Minister of the Interior was concocting. The topic made the cover of the first issue. The editor-in-chief congratulated me. ‘I was just lucky,’ I said. I will never forget his answer: ‘A good journalist is a lucky journalist, nothing more, nothing less.’ Nor will I forget what he said next – that lesson is indelibly imprinted on my mind: ‘Remember that you only exist through your newspaper, not through yourself.’
That is how I came to cover the Élysée, part of the government, and the Socialist Party, no less! I was asked for a paper on the ‘resurgence of old factions in the Socialist Party’. I looked up from my work and asked naively: ‘What are factions?’
The editor-in-chief looked at me in despair and answered: ‘If it had been up to me, you would never have been hired.’
I was well aware of my shortcomings. I had not attended Sciences Politiques Paris; there was so much I did not know. I lacked political culture – culture full stop, for that matter. I did not know the protocol in this new world.
I was twenty-three and had never boarded a plane. When I said as much to the civil aviation director, whom I had been assigned to write a profile of, he offered to organise my maiden flight! The only foreign country I had been to was Germany, on a language exchange. I had never seen the Mediterranean. As a child, I had only been to the theatre once, and it was a musical at that. A cinema outing was a rare occurrence. The Parisian scene was foreign to me. When the director of the paper told me that to do well you had to ‘dine out in town’, I did not understand what he was talking about. ‘In town’, for the provincial girl that I was, meant taking the bus to go into town. And not for dinner either – we never went to the restaurant.
But I got down to work. I tried to study and understand the factions and sub-factions of the Socialist Party: those loyal to Chevènement, Mauroy, Poperen, Fabius, Jospin and the ‘Transcourants’ – a transfactional faction.6 One of the leaders of the latter movement was called François Hollande. He and his friends were close to Jacques Delors, they were open-minded and iconoclastic. I felt a political affinity with the group.
I still own a few copies of their periodical, Témoin.7 On my bookshelf, I also have François Hollande’s first book, L’heure des choix,8 which he co-wrote with Pierre Moscovici and published in 1991. His autograph reads: ‘To Valérie Massonneau [my maiden name] who after reading this book will grow from a formidable expert on the mysteries of politics, into an authority on economics.’
François Hollande and I have known each other since 1988. He has been in my world for twenty-six years. I have no memory of our first lunch. He remembers it, however, and has often complained since that I have forgotten that moment. It was at the restaurant of the National Assembly, I know that much.
I remember the Transcourants meetings of Lorient in Brittany with more clarity. Every summer, Jacques Delors chaired these focus days. There were rainy years – Brittany is what it is – but the meetings were always cheerful regardless. François brought the good mood – as he does everywhere he goes. Not many journalists attended. We went out for a drink at the end of the day. I enjoyed being around him. François liked journalists and before long I was his favourite.
In 1989, Profession Politique changed hands and a new editor-in-chief was appointed.
He took an instant disliking to me, and I was quickly off the team. He mistook me for a bourgeoise, from a well-to-do family.
Since I had been laid off and had cashed in a redundancy package, I decided to spend a month in the US with Frank, my first love – who was to become my first husband. It was time for me to start discovering the world and I had a few job options lined up. A few months earlier I had met the editor-in-chief of Paris-Match at the Élysée during the traditional media conference where the President addresses the nation to present his New Year Wishes. That day, a more experienced colleague had said: ‘Stay with me – after the ceremony Mitterrand will be seeing a dozen journalists in one of the living rooms. I’ll bring you along.’
And so I found myself devotedly listening – along with the elite of the press – to the then President. The Paris-Match editor-in-chief saw me leave the living room with that privileged group of journalists and we exchanged details. I was only twenty-four and François Mitterrand had impacted my fate for the second time! How could I have imagined that one day I would be with another President? That I too would tread the red carpet rolled out in the Élysée Palace’s Cour d’honneur for the inauguration ceremony? When it did happen I tried to find the living room in question. I remembered that it was next to the function room but I could not recognise it with complete certainty. Twenty-five years had elapsed. Twenty-five years! The years had gone by in a flash. I had been married twice and had divorced twice.
I had given birth to my three boys: they were by far my main concern and my most wonderful success – they were the people I held dearest in the world.
I walked into Paris-Match on tiptoes in 1989. I started out as a freelance journalist; I was not yet part of the editorial team. A young ‘on-the-field’ reporter was needed for the new political pages of Paris-Match. Since I had a few left-minded contacts I was quite naturally oriented towards the Socialist Party. I also had a few passes to the Élysée – which was uncommon for a young journalist. Paris-Match veterans in charge of politics were hardly delighted that I had been recruited. Six months later, the newspaper’s legendary boss, Roger Thérond, hired me at the bottom of the pecking order as a contributor. That was all it took to spark envy and feed all sorts of fantasies, with improbable lists of whom I owed my recruitment to. I discovered corridor gossip very early on!
I did not meet Roger Thérond when I was hired. I met him few months later in rather unpleasant circumstances. I was what was called a ‘regular contributor’ and did not have an official contract. I would submit articles that would appear – or not – in the paper. One of my articles did not sit well with the infamous businessman Bernard Tapie.
I had been invited by ‘Club Mendès France’ – a group of young people fresh out of the elite École nationale d’administration – to one of their debate dinners … guest-starring Bernard Tapie. I arrived five minutes late and found that they had already sat down to dinner. The then head of Marseilles football club welcomed me with this sentence: ‘Don’t tell me she went to the École nationale d’administration – you can tell just by looking at her.’ I did my best to keep a low profile. At the time I was still shy. I was introduced to Bernard Tapie as a journalist, which was further evidenced by the fact that I always had my little notebook handy. But Mr Tapie wasn’t one to be easily put off: ‘No problem! With me, nothing is off the record, I take responsibility for everything I say.’
Mr Tapie, politician that he was, blamed François Mitterrand for the rise of the National Front. He went on to list the various people he despised, and finally attacked government ministers: none of them were as well off as he was, his mansion was bigger than their ministry, and so on and so forth. It was a full-on Tapie fest, reple
te with Tapie-phrases and bragging. I pitched a piece to Paris-Match, which was immediately accepted.
When it came out, Bernard Tapie called Roger Thérond and certified that … I had made everything up. The editor-in-chief called me in and asked me to confirm I had attended that dinner. I explained myself and showed her my notepad.
It was not enough and the whole business did not stop there: I was called in to ‘see Roger’. Though I had never been called in to see the headmaster at school, I felt like I was a bad pupil who had been dealt her punishment. I did not feel confident. I made the École nationale d’administration graduates aware of Bernard Tapie’s reaction: they had read my article and knew that what I had reported was accurate. Their outrage somewhat reassured me ahead of the meeting. I was nervous when I entered the ‘boss’s office’. He was not a man to be messed with and his enunciation was impeccable. I barely dared open my mouth.
‘I was told I could trust you but I do not know you,’ he said. ‘If you could prove that Bernard Tapie said what you say he did, it would be easier.’
It was my first hurdle as a journalist. I was in luck once again. The debate had been recorded. The two organisers of the political debate club were prepared to support me and hand over the recording to Roger Thérond. They were seen a few days later. They brought the tape but the director of Paris-Match was satisfied just seeing the evidence without listening to it. What mattered was that I was being backed up, that I took my work seriously. Rather than take responsibility for what he had said, Bernard Tapie had tried to have me fired. Instead of that, his abortive tactic got me officially integrated at Paris-Match!
I remember later telling François Hollande – who already distrusted the businessman – this story. At the time, we bumped into one another every week in the famous Hall of the Four Columns at the National Assembly. He was one of the MPs who attracted journalists. He was skilled at extracting spice from political life. He had a journalist’s thinking cap, and could make you change angles for your article without you even realising.
The years passed and we were getting closer, professionally speaking. Early 1993, I took a few months off for my first maternity leave. I had met at Paris-Match the man who was to become my husband two years later, Denis Trierweiler – an editor at the newspaper, as well as a translator and an expert on German philosophers. He was handsome and intelligent but had an inner darkness. He came from a background that was even more under-privileged than mine. He had that specialist knowledge I so sorely lacked. But he stayed locked up in his own world, his books, his philosophy and his thirst for knowledge. Even before we were in a relationship, I had dreamt he would be the father of my children. He had dreamt the same dream. Starting a family with him was the most natural thing in the world.
Our son was born in January and it was in the rue de Solférino – the Socialist Party HQ – that I resumed work for the event for the legislative elections on 21 March. That evening the Socialist Party suffered a flat-out defeat. The atmosphere was moribund. I wondered what I was doing there – why I had left my baby at home, my baby who was not yet three months old – for this tragic atmosphere.
Like most Socialist MPs, François Hollande was ousted by the right. He was in a state of shock. The two of us met for lunch shortly afterwards, at a restaurant called La Ferme Saint-Simon. He opened up to me, trusted me with his doubts and questions about his political future. He lived and breathed politics but had been shaken by this failure. He was wondering whether to give up Corrèze and choose another constituency. The problem was that it was tricky for the Socialist Party to maintain its influence in Corrèze as it was in the middle of a Chirac stronghold.
I was struck by Hollande’s sincerity that day. Contrary to his habit, he did not overdo high spirits and humour. I remember how lost he looked. Real exchanges, trusting exchanges, are few and far between in a political journalist’s career. Notwithstanding, our relationship was anything but ambiguous. François Hollande never said a word out of line to me or behaved inappropriately with me – unlike many a politician.
There were only fifty-two Socialist MPs left – which was hardly enough to keep a journalist busy full-time. The Paris-Match board asked me to focus on covering Édouard Balladur’s government. And so I met the rightwing leaders. My address book was filling up. François Hollande and I lost touch somewhat.
I found the time to have a second child. Those interludes that give the tempo of a mother’s life are both precious and unique. My eldest son was born in the middle of the legislative elections; the second arrived in the middle of the 1994 European vote! For a political journalist, my timing could have been better but I did not care. I loved my job but the maternal instinct was stronger. Two years later, I was pregnant again.
I come from a big family, and the age gap between us is small – my parents had six children in four and a half years. That’s right, four and a half years! Twins followed by a child every year. Not only that, but my mother gave birth to her sixth child five days after her twentieth birthday.
The black-and-white pictures of my mother – so young – with her brood around her and in her arms are an inspiration to me. She is beautiful and we could not have had a better mother. She is a role model for me: she has always managed; she was strong and never shied away from her responsibilities.
She did not have a car and every day she would climb onto her bike and go grocery shopping for nine people (my maternal grandmother lived with us). There were three of us on her bike when she took us to school. She also had to take care of my father, who was disabled and tyrannical. He had had a leg amputated in 1944, aged twelve, as a result of shrapnel. We had always known our father with his wooden leg. In our eyes, he wasn’t disabled. He could not stand the word and wore the title of Grand Invalide de Guerre9 with much more pride. I remember one of my friends who told me in primary school: ‘If my father was like yours, I would cry every day.’
I was perplexed. I did not understand what I should have been crying about.
When my father died in 1986, he had never talked to us about his ‘accident’. During François’ presidential campaign, a journalist from the regional daily Ouest-France managed to dig up an article about that tragic day. A driver had found three young boys on the roadside, one of them was dead and the other two were injured. My father was unconscious. They managed to save him, but not his leg. No doubt he also left his joie de vivre in that ditch. The day I read that article – it was just a brief, in fact – I understood what my father’s personal tragedy had been. It was then that I cried, by myself, thinking about what he had gone through.
At school, when we filled in the ‘profession’ of our parents, we had to write ‘GIG’ (Grand Invalide de Guerre) next to ‘father’ and ‘no profession’ next to ‘mother’. Our ‘difference’ lay right there. Our parents did not work. They stayed at home. Which meant that for us, hanging around after school was out of the question. We did not have much freedom. Time was never wasted: as soon as we got home we had our snack – jam or fake Nutella – and then we would settle around the table in a room we called the ‘family room’. We did our homework there while my mother presided at the end of the table with her knitting – always prepared to help us recite the poems we had to learn by heart or practise our times tables.
My mother helped us as long as she could – she had only completed primary education. I admired her but I had sworn to myself that I would not live the same life as her. She was a slave to a large family and never had any time for herself – she didn’t allow herself any. For most of her life, my mother had to put up with more than a person should ever have to put up with.
She had incredible inner strength and was driven to be independent. She learned to drive without telling our father; she had only let us in on the secret so we could cover for her. When she passed her licence not only did my father agree to let her drive him around, but my parents bought a family-size Peugeot 404 with three rows of seats. The children rode at the back with the
very youngest sat in the middle. That was the beginning of Sunday drives. We visited a lot of castles – we got in for free thanks to our ‘large family’ card.
My mother had another major achievement, again without my father knowing: she looked for a job. It was 1982. I was already seventeen. She applied for a cashier position at the Angers skating rink and got the job. My father struggled with the idea of her getting her independence. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t already worked occasionally, though. She would give one of my uncles a hand with his flower stall at the market on some Saturdays. I adored meeting her there and helping her wrap up the bouquets. But this time it was a full-time job with set shifts – very late some evenings and every weekend.
Like many other women, her life became a race against the clock. Unlike most other women, she had six children and a disabled husband who was becoming increasingly dictatorial with age and illness. She would run in to cook a dinner which she did not have time to eat with us; eventually she would sit down for five minutes and gulp down a few mouthfuls, straight out of the Tupperware.
My three sisters and I helped her with cooking and housework. My father had excused my two brothers – the boys – from all housework save taking the bins out. The boys’ studies were more important than the girls’. My mother encouraged me to break away from this pattern, to escape from this vision of a woman’s role. In secondary school I started to work every Sunday morning in a shop called Tout et tout,10 making 50 francs for four hours’ work. And that was how I bought my freedom – otherwise known as a second-hand moped.
At sixteen I had temporary jobs after school. In my last year at school I worked as a receptionist at the Palais des Congrès.11 Clad in my navy blue and white uniform, I would usher people who were fortunate enough to see the show to their seats. Whenever possible I would linger to see what I could.
I felt the sting of injustice early on when one of my school friends told me her parents did not want me to come to her house anymore. I did not live on the right side of the boulevard, I did not belong to the right social circles, I was not a suitable person to be seen with. I was the top student but I did not have the right profile. The whole story really affected me – it has always stayed with me. I abhor racial discrimination but I think we often forget just how pernicious social discrimination can be.
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