Scorned former first lady in kiss-and-tell on Hollande

French President François Hollande’s ex-girlfriend writes in a tell-all book to be published today that months after their public breakup he was trying to win her back with flowers, dinner invitations, and barrages of text messages.

Valérie Trierweiler — a journalist for glossy magazine Paris Match — lived with Hollande at the Elysee presidential palace for a year and a half until a gossip magazine exposed his secret relationship with actress Julie Gayet, 42, in January.

After her breakup with the president, Trierweiler, 49, granted interviews and kept up a weekly literary column.

But her 320-page book — written in secret — describes as yet unknown episodes including how Hollande tore a bag of sleeping pills out of her hand when she tried to swallow them during their breakup, according to excerpts published by Paris Match.

Trierweiler also writes of her own “uncontrollable” jealousy toward Segolene Royal, the woman with whom Hollande had four children over quarter of a century and who is now a minister in his government.

She also speaks of coldness and mean-spirited stabs, and of his attempts to win her back after their breakup by sending up to 29 text messages in a day.

“He tells me he is going to win me back as if I was an election,” Paris Match quoted her as saying.

“The news of Julie Gayet was on the morning news,” reads one excerpt of the book, titled “Thank You For This Moment”.

“I run into the bathroom. I take the little plastic bag containing the sleeping pills. François follows me.

“He tries to tear away the bag... He catches the bag, which tears... I manage to gather up some of them. I want to sleep, I do not want to live the hours to come.”

Trierweiler was briefly hospitalised at that time.

Olivier Royant, editor- in-chief of Paris Match, said on BFMTV that Hollande only became aware of the book on Tuesday. The president’s office had no immediate comment.

His allies rushed to contain any potential damage to Hollande, who is the most unpopular president in France’s postwar history and is struggling to shore up an economy plagued by unemployment at more than 10% — near record highs.

Agriculture minister Stephane Le Foll, a friend of Hollande’s, said that the country had more important issues to deal with than the president’s private life.

“We have enough serious, weighty issues,” he told television network i>Télé.> “We haven’t got a lot of time, so we can’t afford to lose it.”

In quotes carried by Paris Match, Trierweiler says that at the beginning, “it was electric between us when we were together”.

But Hollande changed, “de-humanised” as he got closer to the reins of power, Trierweiler was quoted as saying.

Asked whether being in office had changed Hollande, as Trierweiler alleges in her book, Le Foll added: “It’s true that the presidential role is a burden, a responsibility before the French, which is exceptionally weighty.”

“All of that takes a toll on a man.”

Claude Bartolone, the Socialist speaker of parliament, told BFMTV that he would not read the book and was no supporter of “paparazzi politics”.

Right-wing opponents, while also saying they would not read the book, said the excerpts offered insight into the personality of a president often accused of being aloof and indecisive.

“Clearly, in this case, beyond his private life this is about the temperament of a man whose cynicism and whose indifference are worrying,” said Brice Hortefeux, a member of the centre-right UMP opposition and former interior minister.

News of his affair with 42-year-old Gayet caused shockwaves in France in January, and Trierweiler was hospitalised for a week after Closer published pictures of Hollande arriving for secret trysts with the actress at a borrowed flat.

Hollande then announced his relationship with Trierweiler was over in an 18-word statement that was devoid of regret or remorse for the woman he had once described as “the love of my life”.