Hollande feels backlash over Trierweiler split

French president François Hollande has been hit with a backlash over the manner in which he dumped former first lady Valerie Trierweiler after being caught having a secret affair.

In a sign that the saga that has gripped France for weeks is not about to drop off the agenda, politicians across the spectrum have displayed an unusual willingness to voice their opinion on what the president’s handling of the affair and its messy aftermath indicate about his character.

The verdict, from his political rivals at least, has not been kind to the 59-year-old, who has found himself in a similar position before.

He left the mother of his four children, Ségolène Royal, for Trierweiler after an affair biographers say was conducted in secret for years before he owned up to it.

Nathalie Kosciusko- Morizet, a leading light in the opposition UMP, warned Hollande that women voters would not quickly forget the dry manner in which he announced his break up with Trierweiler in a statement to the press. “I felt like I was reading a sacking letter rather than a break-up one,” said the deputy who is bidding to become the next mayor of Paris.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of the Party of the Left, said: “His statement was that of an oaf. You just have to read it... me, me, me.”

Even an ally of Hollande said the president had dealt with Trierweiler ruthlessly after denying for months he was having an affair with actress Julie Gayet.

“As soon as the Closer revelations came out, Valerie was treated like a tricky political issue, to be dealt with coldly,” the ally was quoted as saying by the Journal du Dimanche.

Two other prominent figures, National Front leader Marine Le Pen and the centre-right deputy Henri Guaino, have accused Hollande of first promoting Trierweiler to a quasi-official role before “repudiating” her in the manner of a medieval monarch.

“It was the head of state who put Madame Trierweiler at the centre of our institutions and installed her at the Élysée — inevitably this affair is a public matter,” Guaino said.

The character assassination inflicted on Hollande reflects a total breakdown in the French political class’s traditional reticence about making politicians’ conduct in their private lives an issue for the consideration of voters.

And it forced Harlem Desir, the first secretary of Hollande’s Socialist Party, to come to the president’s defence. “He is a very human and very sensitive character,” Desir said.

Surveys suggest the French are not interested, but the booming sales of Closer and similar magazines tell a different story.

Trierweiler, meanwhile, began carving out a new role for herself on a long- planned trip to India for the Action against Hunger charity she is associated with.

Photographed cradling an ailing child in a Mumbai slum, Trierweiler was given a sympathetic reception in India and revealed she plans to continue charity work rather than returning to her role as a political journalist for weekly glossy Paris Match. The prospect of covering Hollande would be “too complicated”, she said.

The other woman in the love triangle, Gayet, has been keeping a very low profile, although friends of the actress have been quoted as saying she has no intention of trying to become the next first lady.