I also remember a story, back in the day when I was a young political journalist and François Hollande a freshly elected MP. He and I were talking, at a garden party held at the Élysée for Bastille Day, at the time François Mitterrand was the President of France. Not far off, Ségolène Royal was being showered with attention. A guest walked towards François, handshake extended: ‘Hello, Mr Royal!’ he said.
François smiled back, coldly. After the rude man had left, François said under his breath: ‘That’s not the end of that.’
Fifteen years later, I was by his side when Ségolène Royal rose to become the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate of choice – when he was the party’s First Secretary – and I know how trying that was for his ego.
That day, in his hospital room, I thought he was talking about his past. But he may have been addressing me, too.
I was not sure where he was going with it all. Our enchanted years were coming to an end. He was about to announce he was running for President and the odds were in his favour. He did not want to share any of it with anyone else. Declaring myself a Socialist woman on television, existing outside of his control, was like plunging him back into his life with Ségolène Royal and the frustration he endured. I remember him flying into a rage about a magazine cover where we featured together. ‘You take up all the space!’
The reaction of a wounded man.
I paid the price for his past, that political twosome that time after time ruined our daily lives, as well as proving to be an obstacle to our future together.
At the same time – and this is the ‘Hollande contradiction’ – a man who refused to share the spotlight, who wanted to star in a one-man show, that very same man, was the one who fell in love with a woman who had a job, a life, three children and an independent and free spirit. He could have found someone more accommodating. Instead, he chose an all-consuming love. That is the way of politicians, those strong and egocentric individuals who want it all – one thing and then the other – because their ambitions are limitless.
In any case, he does not have me completely fooled: I know full well that in some circumstances showcasing me served his purpose. When the time came to vote on the law opening up marriage to same-sex couples – the so-called ‘marriage for all’ law – François did not lose sight of the promises he had made; and this in spite of huge street protests. Deep down, he himself was not fully convinced – citing the ‘mayors’ freedom of conscience’. The second I heard that he was playing with the idea of a ‘conscientious objection’ proviso, I sent him a message warning him that his sentence would not go down well. Faced with an outcry, as I had predicted, he took it out of his rhetoric.
In this particular battle, I was on the front line, with his approval and maybe even in his stead. Probably because he sees marriage as an anachronism, François has never fully grasped – he understands it only on an intellectual level – just how far-reaching this emblematic Socialist reform of France’s marriage laws is. In fact, it will likely be his only lasting mark in France’s history books. The irony of this is not lost on me.
François sends me text messages saying that I am the woman of his life. I have heard that expression before. He used it about me in an interview, shortly before backtracking. Once duplicitous, always duplicitous…
A few weeks ago, he asked me to marry him. It is the third time. The first time was in 2010, but my divorce was too recent, I wasn’t ready. The second time was after he was elected, in September 2012. We had even discussed getting married before Christmas in a very small ceremony, in Tulle. He pulled out a month before the date and spoke words of inhuman cruelty. Julie Gayet was already a part of his life, but I did not know that then.
It is too late. You do not get married to make amends. Naturally, being married to him would have made my life much easier. In other people’s minds, and possibly in mine too, I would have had more legitimacy. This official bond would no doubt have set my mind at rest and I would not have lost my self-confidence. I did not need two rings, but I needed him and I to be in the same circle of trust.
I recently went to the theatre with my youngest son to see Victor Hugo’s play Lucrèce Borgia at the Comédie-Française. That night, with a choked heart, I drowned in Lucrèce’s speech to her husband, Don Alphonso: ‘You have let the people ridicule me, you have let them insult me … Who weds, protects.’ Tragedy is eternal.
At François Hollande’s side, I went through many lows as well as thrilling highs, I met unforgettable people and lived very intense moments. That person – who is supposedly me, a product of circumstances and media frenzy – no longer has any reason to exist. This book is a message in a bottle – in it lies my past with him. I have made mistakes, I sometimes lost my way, I might even have behaved in a hurtful way, but I never put on an act, I was never anyone but myself, I was always sincere.
Everything I have written in this book is true. I suffered too much from lies to be untruthful myself. Writing helped me deal with the fruits of my anger and disappointment. How much longer will I be mourning this love? The President summarised our relationship in eighteen ice-cold words, which he himself dictated to the AFP. These pages are my own answer. The full stop to our relationship. They will be read only by those who want to understand me. The others will walk on by, without stopping, and that is as it should be.
The time has come to end this story, written through my tears, my sleepless nights and my memories – some wounds have healed, some still hurt. Thank you for this moment, thank you for this mad love, thank you for this trip to the Élysée. But not only that. Thank you, also, for the chasm of despair you pushed me into. You taught me a lot about you, about others and about myself. I can now be and do as I please without fearing people’s judgement of me, without pleading for you to only see me. I want to live, I want to write more pages in this strange book that is life, I want to continue on this singular voyage that is a woman’s life. You will not be a part of it. You neither married nor protected me.
Would that I was loved as much as I have loved.
1 Formerly Cécilia Sarkozy.
2 Action Against Hunger.
3 A raid and mass arrest of Jews in Paris conducted by the Nazis in July 1942.
4 A French news and talk show airing every weekday evening on Canal+.
5 Profession: Politician.
6 A reformist faction of the Socialist Party.
7 Witness.
8 The Hour of Choice.
9 Severely disabled war veteran.
10 Anything and Everything.
11 A convention centre.
12 French riot control forces.
13 Fern living room.
14 A Socialist Response.
15 Itineraries.
16 Hazel.
17 Chestnut.
18 A public scandal had arisen following accusations of Morelle leading an inappropriately lavish lifestyle, including hiring a personal shoe-shiner to clean his many pairs of handmade leather shoes.
19 Public Service.
20 The Troublemaker.
21 The King’s Mistress.
22 Collectif adoption Mali.
23 European Leukodystrophies Association.
24 Dried cured sausage.
25 A summit of French-speaking countries/former French colonies.
AUTHOR’S
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I WOULD LIKE TO express my heartfelt thanks to my editor, Laurent Beccaria, who followed the writing of this memoir from beginning to end, giving me considerable latitude – which was what I needed. Without ever putting any pressure on me, he found a way to take on board my frailty and guided me when I needed – always with generosity.
Thank you, Anna Jarota, my literary agent, who, on top of her professionalism, supported me as a friend would.
I am also grateful to four people who are close to me for keeping the secret about the book I was writing. I would like to apologise to my friends and family whom I did not let into the secre
t.
Lastly, thank you to all the people who have written to me and whom I have not had time to reply to – I want them to know that I read their letters, that they moved me and helped me hold on and get back on my feet.
Paris,
31 July 2014
Copyright
This edition published in Great Britain in 2015 by
Biteback Publishing Ltd
Westminster Tower
3 Albert Embankment
London SE1 7SP
Copyright © Valérie Trierweiler 2014, 2015
Copyright in the translation © Clémence Sebag 2014, 2015
Originally published in France in 2014 by Les Arènes
Valérie Trierweiler has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs andPatents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the publisher’s prior permission in writing.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.
ISBN 978–1–84954–849–6
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Thank You for This Moment Page 22