Magazine claims Hollande began affair before election

French President François Hollande faced fresh scrutiny over his affair with an actress as the magazine that broke the story published claims he started seeing her before his 2012 election.

In its latest revelations about a saga that has made headlines around the world, Closer magazine said Hollande had been introduced to Julie Gayet, 41, during campaigning, fell for her immediately, and “relations quickly became more intimate”.

The latest edition of the glossy weekly hit stands as Hollande’s office confirmed that he had visited his official partner, Valerie Trierweiler, for the first time since she was hospitalised in the wake of the affair revelations.

Hollande visited Trierweiler at a Paris hospital on Thursday evening, six days after she was admitted.

His failure to visit earlier had helped to fuel speculation that he has decided to end the relationship with Trierweiler, for whom he left Segolene Royal, the mother of his four children, in 2005.

Hollande has said he will clarify the position of France’s de facto first lady before a trip to Washington next month but has refused any other comment.

Closer, which is being sued by Gayet for alleged breach of privacy, reported last week that she had been having secret trysts with the president and published photographs of the pair arriving separately at a borrowed flat near his official residence, the Élysée Palace.

Hours later, Trierweiler, was admitted to a Paris hospital where she remained last night after a week of treatment for symptoms described as including nervous exhaustion and low blood pressure.

In its follow-up story, Closer depicted Hollande’s romance with Gayet as much more than a brief fling, although it offered little in the way of concrete evidence and, unlike last week’s scoop, no pictures to back up its account.

The magazine said the couple had also regularly met at another Paris apartment and at Gayet’s loft in eastern Paris, where she hosted frequent dinner parties for members of France’s artistic, intellectual, and political elite.

According to Closer, the couple took a break from seeing each other in May of last year after Trierweiler confronted Hollande over rumours he was seeing the actress.

But by July, Hollande and Gayet had reportedly resumed their romance, with the president entertaining the actress in Tulle, in his former parliamentary seat in the Correze region of central France, while Trierweiler was holidaying in Greece.

Another secret mini-break allegedly followed in September at Hollande’s holiday home at Mougins on the French Riviera.

Closer said that Gayet was seeking damages of €50,000 on the grounds that the magazine’s first report on the affair represented an illegal breach of her privacy.

Hollande has not denied the magazine’s report and has ruled out any legal action on his own behalf.

If it is confirmed that Hollande did begin an affair with Gayet before his 2012 victory over Nicolas Sarkozy, it will mean he presented voters with a false image of his domestic set-up during the campaign when he was said to have found happiness with Trierweiler.