I decided to wake François and tell him what was going on. ‘Go back to sleep, it’s a crock of shit,’ he said with his back turned to me. He had never heeded the rumours about his rival’s sexual deviance. It is one of François’ qualities: he ignores malicious talk around town. François fell back asleep. I was wide awake: I browsed the internet, searching for more reliable sources in respected US newspapers.
I woke François up again a few hours later, it must have been around two or three in the morning. ‘Trust me, something serious is happening,’ I said, ‘the US press has announced that Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been arrested for rape.’
This time, François sat up immediately, propped himself against his pillow and he too started looking at his iPhone. He did not waste a minute mocking Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Mentally, François was already preparing his next move: ‘It’s bad news, now Socialists are likely to rally around his other Socialist rival, Martine Aubry.’
Our phones started ringing off the hook, we received calls from his entourage and from journalists clamouring for statements. We barely slept a wink all night. The rest is history. The media craze that followed, a worldwide snowball effect with thousands of journalists, genuine and fake researchers, backed by hundreds of commentators with more than a bit of nerve, all trying to outdo each other with new ‘information’. Experts came out of the woodwork, there were endless hours of live feed showing the non-stop parade of cars with tinted windows and twenty-second events on a loop, while dozens of rumours – no fact-checking there! – were sucked in and spat out by the media monster.
It never occurred to me that I too would one day be the object of such insanity.
François was completely thrown. He had built his entire campaign around his opposition with Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Consequently, he needed to rethink it entirely. As he had feared, some Socialists started asking for the primaries to be cancelled and for the Socialist First Secretary, Martine Aubry, to be automatically nominated sole candidate.
The very first person to step forward in support of Martine Aubry was an elected representative from a Parisian banlieue. A few days earlier he had come over for dinner with his wife and said he would support Dominique Strauss-Kahn except if the latter stood down, in which case he would choose François – on no account would he vote for Martine Aubry, he said. Over dinner he heavily criticised Martine Aubry, calling her ‘crazy and unstable’ and attacking her over her behaviour in private matters. François was quite clearly his second choice but he was outspoken and I liked that. His public support for Martine Aubry only a few days after attacking her in private was a major political backflip. A betrayal of such magnitude – pulled off with disconcerting ease – was beyond me and I texted him to tell him what I thought of him. Sadly, that is just one example of human behaviour in the hornets’ nest that is politics.
Late June 2011, when Ségolène Royal started campaigning for the Socialist Party primaries, things got a bit more complicated … Until the very last minute, François was convinced she would pull out. He was wrong.
The clash between the two ‘exes’ was Christmas come early for the press. The primaries looked set to turn into a face-off like no other before it. All the ingredients were there – getting even for 2007, the defeat and the separation. Ségolène Royal was merciless, asking, on national television: ‘Can you list a single one of François Hollande’s achievements in thirty years in politics?’
She was spoiling for a fight but François never counter-attacked. He knew all too well that public opinion would not take kindly to a frontal attack. Besides, there were the children to think of. The whole episode was no doubt painful for them but when they came for lunch or dinner at our flat on rue Cauchy, the subject was never touched upon. At least not when I was around.
After the first round, François Hollande and Martine Aubry were the only two candidates still standing. I heard on the radio, in my car, that François had reached an agreement with Ségolène Royal: she would support him in his campaign and encourage her followers to vote for François. I was so shocked I hit the brakes abruptly and nearly had an accident. François had not breathed a word to me.
I sensed that, as usual, he was unable to discuss even the simplest things directly. I knew what Ségolène Royal had asked for in exchange for her rallying – and not just financially. I never doubted for a minute that she had obtained what she wanted.
I tweeted to congratulate her on her ‘sincere and disin terested rallying’. Only a small number of people in my inner circle understood the sarcasm. At the time, in a bid to defuse the situation, I put up with and even disregarded François’ omissions and secretiveness. Now that I know the pervasive effects of lies, I cannot abide them any longer.
I followed François throughout his campaign the way you hold on to – or are dragged along by – the man you love. I went along with him on the way to his dream. He did not reciprocate. With the Socialist primaries in full swing, in September 2011 I gave up my political show and changed course. I was still working for the same channel but I was now interviewing artists – singers, actors, and so on – for a show called Itinéraires.15 One day when I mentioned my show, François turned around and asked: ‘What’s Itinéraires?’ I was astounded, the man I was sharing my life with did not even know the name of the show I was presenting. Nothing I did interested him.
That he had never watched a single episode of my TV show should not have come as a surprise, as he did not read my book reviews for Paris-Match either. I would see him skip the culture section to get to the politics pages.
There had been a time when I was so important in his eyes, when I was a political journalist. It was long gone.
Outside of politics, François was interested in nothing. Nothing and no one. He was not interested in literature and was just as indifferent to theatre and music. Cinema interested him somewhat – just maybe. His circle of friends never extended beyond the so-called ‘Voltaire’ year at the elite École nationale d’administration. Not politics? Not interested.
No one was more valuable to François than a political journalist. I was often asked whether journalists were jealous of me and I would reply that no, it was quite the opposite: I was the one who was jealous of them. Envious of his closeness to them, the fascination he had for them. There were often journalists at home – they dropped by to give the Socialist candidate some advice.
In spite of everything, I stubbornly continued to love him and only him. The summer break after he announced he would run was anything but. François did not want to leave France and planned to campaign during that time. He met us in Hossegor, where I had rented a house for the summer to spend the holidays with my children. When they went to spend the rest of the holiday with their father, François and I roamed the inside of the French Basque Country, which I did not know very well. We found a lovely little inn, my perfect holiday. For François, each stop was an opportunity to meet the elected representatives, to try to rally them around. That was how we found ourselves at a pastorale – four hours of Basque songs, outdoors in 14 degrees Celsius … in August. It proved useful, as the Senator rallied! Every vote counted and I knew that.
François was spinning his web. Patiently. We went to Latche together, François Mitterrand’s den. His son Gilbert Mitterrand did the honours. Danielle Mitterrand was there, weak but happy, surrounded by her granddaughters and her great-grandsons. She welcomed us with open arms. Neither François nor I had ever visited François Mitterrand’s property. Discovering this place – the sheep pen François Mitterrand liked to retire to, surrounded by his books – was incredibly emotional!
Nothing had changed since then. Not even his collection of paperbacks. This was a historic place – where François Mitterrand had seen several heads of state. Gilbert insisted on keeping the place just as it was, with its dust – as if time had stopped. The donkeys still had the same names, Noisette16 and Marron.17 Like their owner, the animals were not immortal and had been replaced since Fra
nçois Mitterrand’s death. The trees were ‘his trees’ – the trees Mitterrand used to speak to. Their roots run deep, just as Mitterrand will always remain deep-rooted in history. I was keenly aware of the privilege it was to be there – I sensed I was embarking upon an extraordinary adventure.
The day after his victory against Martine Aubry, François was happier than ever. We had had a short night’s sleep and stayed in bed awhile, listening to the radio. The news bulletins all opened with François’ appointment as the Socialist Party’s officially endorsed candidate. François’ face radiated intense happiness. I still have that picture saved on my iPhone… A picture of ecstatic joy and fulfilment. An expression I had never since seen on him.
From the very start, I had been convinced that if he won the Socialist primaries, he would win the presidential election. I had no doubt about that, and I do not think he did either.
He remained in a state of extreme concentration and complete self-control throughout the entire official campaign. Being the favourite contender entailed a risk: the slightest faux pas could cost him dear. The week before the big Le Bourget meeting, the defining moment of his campaign, François did not leave the rue Cauchy for three days.
Aquilino Morelle, his PR adviser, the man whose shoes were always shined, claimed to have authored the Le Bourget speech.18 In truth, François worked very hard at it. The dining room table was covered in notes and the floor was strewn with pages and pages of drafts. I took refuge in our room so as not to disturb him but every so often he would come and find me to ask me to print out new notes he was receiving by email because he didn’t know how to do it himself. I was his little helper.
I listened to the radio on the hour, every hour. I became aware that expectations were building around his speech. Commentators expected him to open up to the French public for the first time and give some personal details. A presidential election is a meeting between a man and a people. In the evening, I asked him if he would let me read his speech. He gave it to me and I found nothing personal in it, nothing about him, about his background. I waited until we were in bed with the lights out to tell him what I thought of his speech: ‘Why not say something personal, talk about what you owe your parents? Why not say you love people? That’s what’s expected of you. You are going to disappoint everyone if you don’t. You simply can’t hold anything back.’
François barely answered but I heard him get up to work on his speech. The next day, he showed me his new draft. It was better, but it still fell short. Again, I challenged him to dig deeper, and he did. He gave it his all. I felt like I had helped him bring his own thoughts to life. A few extra paragraphs were all it took, but those paragraphs would make all the difference to the journalists.
Jamel Bensalah directed the campaign film that would be shown to the Socialist supporters at the all-important Le Bourget meeting. He wanted to show it to us beforehand but François did not want to hear or see anything, he wanted to focus on his speech. I asked Jamel to wait for me outside our flat and went to watch the film with him in his car. It was very well directed, it was pacy and carried the energy and spirit of the campaign. But I immediately identified a problem: ‘Jamel, this won’t work. There is no footage of Ségolène Royal! And the blame is going to be laid on me.’
‘It has nothing to do with either you or her. It is not an archive documentary. It was a deliberate decision on my part, as director, to only show victories.’
‘They are all going to attack me with fists flying.’
I was insistent, but he refused to believe me. He did not realise that the media monster was already on the rampage: every single word and fact was ripped apart and dissected, over-analysed and over-interpreted – seen through the filter of our history.
I was right. The Le Bourget meeting was a huge success, François shone, he was impressive – the blunder the director had made was the one fly in the ointment.
Though we have certainly had our differences, I can easily imagine how wounding it was for Ségolène Royal – a proud politician, the first woman to run for President in France, and to be a runner-up – when, surrounded by tens of thousands of ecstatic Socialist Party members, she discovered that the film did not have a single image of her campaign.
Her entourage and the press unanimously laid the blame for her conspicuous absence at my door. Jamel Bensalah immediately sent me a huge bouquet of flowers to apologise, but his mea culpa did not stand a chance against the media’s version.
The incident helped make the Hollande/Royal saga popular all over again. At the beginning of his campaign, François had given me his word that he would never hold a joint meeting with Ségolène Royal – just group meetings with other Socialist leaders. Unsurprisingly, under media and political pressure, a public meeting was nonetheless organised in Rennes, between the two successive Socialist Party presidential candidates.
Cue several trying hours of collective hysteria – in which I participated. I literally felt – which is to say I was the dictionary definition of the term – ‘uncontrollable emotional excesses’. I was physically incapable of watching them both hand in hand on stage – especially as that gesture was exactly what everyone wanted: the party members just as much as the media. I was powerless in the face of the collective desire to see them side by side.
I had barely arrived when a journalist, with a cameraman in tow, called out to me: ‘How does it make you feel to see François Hollande rebuilding his relationship?’
He did not bother with common decency. His question was delivered like you do an uppercut: it is direct and you aim where it hurts.
I said nothing. I simply turned my back to him. But I was with another journalist and he did put his shock into words: ‘Now I understand what you have to put up with.’ I still remember how aghast he looked. As for me, on the outside I wore a mask, but a fire was raging on the inside.
Seeing my state of nervous tension, François’ team suggested I walk through the huge auditorium alongside him. The idea was simply preposterous and I refused to do it. I locked myself up in the dressing room waiting for Ségolène Royal to finish her speech and hand over the baton to François.
That morning, François had guaranteed to me that they would not be together on stage, that they would behave like politicians, not like a celebrity couple… We had a tense exchange in the dressing room. Things got a bit out of hand. I knew Ségolène Royal’s personality well enough to guess what would happen next. Contrary to what had been agreed, she obviously went back on stage to be cheered with him. It was so predictable! She could simply not resist such a perfect opportunity to share the spotlight and reassert her pre-eminence. I hit rock bottom, convinced that François and I would never be seen as a bona fide couple.
But just when I thought I was defeated, an idea came to me. At the Le Bourget meeting, I had tried to greet Ségolène Royal, but she turned away as soon as she saw me walk towards her. I had not pushed it, as it was crystal clear that she would refuse to shake my hand there and then. So I decided to give her no choice about it. I waited for her to return to her seat, then I signalled to a few photographers to follow me and made a bee-line to where she was sitting. I tricked her … Royal style! She had no other option than to shake my hand. I know it was childish of me but it gave me satisfaction to know that our picture, too, would endure.
None of this puts anyone in a flattering light – starting with me. I do not like to lose control of my emotions. I hated feeling like a bundle of nerves, I had my heart in my mouth – perhaps quite literally so. The incident was evidence – if any further evidence was needed – of just how much François’ constant doublespeak affected me. Clearly, he did not know how to handle the tensions between me and the mother of his children. I had neither the resources nor the self-confidence to rise above it and François certainly did nothing to reassure me.
I understood that the whole affair had been so heavily publicised and commented on in the media that we were condemned to live on tenterhooks, n
ever able to relax. Widespread media presence and the ‘connectedness’ of our brave new world – where every single act and gesture is subjected to comments and can create a buzz – make it ‘difficult to handle private affairs in private’. I use the expression most deliberately here, as I am the one who coined it, following the ‘infamous tweet’…
On the eve of 14 July 2012 – his first television appearance as the new French President – François was busy working on his answers to questions journalists were likely to ask. He was at a loss to turn the ‘infamous’ page. I prompted him: ‘Private affairs should be handled in private’. The next day, François hit a bull’s eye with the sound bite. Journalists interpreted it as a scathing condemnation of my behaviour, never imagining that I had inflicted this public censure upon myself…
Right after his television appearance, which itself followed the Champs-Élysées parade, I went with the President on a trip to Brest. François spent his time avoiding me or running off without waiting for me – except for a brief moment to allow photographers to get a few shots of us together, but not alone. I tried to follow him, like his dog – I had not yet realised I was soon to become ‘his dog’s shadow’ on a very short leash. Still, I put a brave smile on and even tried to joke with the journalists: ‘From now on, I will bite my thumb before I tweet!’
The journalists appreciated my bon mot. François did not.
Was it because of the tweet rift, the ego of a brand new President or that ‘winners’ syndrome’ which leaders who have made it to a position of power are at risk of, and which, when it hits, makes them lose all sense of empathy? Whatever the case, in the weeks following his election I witnessed a drastic reversal in his feelings for me. He blamed me for anything and everything. That I was an easy target for the media made no difference: he did not have a kind word for me, he neither comforted nor supported me. Even worse, he shot me down.
Six months later, for the first time, a favourable article came out, in Le Monde, on the day of the children’s Christmas at the Élysée, mid-December. When François read it, he flew into a rage against me, I had never seen him take his anger out on me so violently and I could not understand what had brought this on. I burst into tears. I eventually understood that Le Monde was ‘his’ newspaper – that it should only mention him, and I should make myself scarce. The time when we loved each other and were happy was long gone. Deep down, François wanted me to take a step back, to be invisible. But he did not say it in so many words – his anger was never about what it was purportedly about, to my bewilderment.
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