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Hollande’s camp furious over Trierweiler movie

The prospect of a film adaptation of Valérie Trierweiler’s tell-all memoir, Thank You for This Moment, has sparked anger among those close to the French president.

Hollande's camp furious over Trierweiler movie
Photo: AFP

Many of President François Hollande's aides and closest friends confessed their anger on Tuesday at the prospect of Trierweiler's book being made into a movie.

“The nightmare goes on,” one of his advisers told Le Parisien newspaper. “I nearly fell off my chair,” said another one.

Hollande would have learnt the "nightmare" news of the film via a press release on Monday, but the Elysée palace has yet to officially comment on it.

Trierweiler's memoir lays bare the turbulent, six-year relationship she had with Hollande, including 18 months by his side after he became president in 2012.

It portrays France's unpopular Socialist head of state as a callous egotist and claimed he tried to win her back "as if she was an election" after the scandal of his affair with French actress Julie Gayet broke in January last year.

The prospect of Trierweiler’s relationship and then messy break-up with Hollande being portrayed on the big screen is the final straw for many in the president's camp.

“The fact that she has written a book is alright because she needed to move on, but agreeing to a movie [is something else]!” said one angry aide.

While Hollande's aides are fretting about the movie, the president himself is pretty unperturbed about the whole affair, according to one his frequent visitors to the palace.

“He is a tower of strength,” said one of his frequent visitors.

Trierweiler, 49, who works for French magazine Paris Match, has already earned more than 1.3 million euros ($1.5 million) in France alone from her book, according to her publisher. It remains in the top three books being sold in France.

Film director Saida Jawad, who has vowed the film would not be controversial, said Trierweiler would have final say over the film.

Could she also have the final world on the casting of her own character?

Speculation is already under way and several names have been suggested: Carole Bouquet, Sophie Marceau… and what about Julie Gayet?

Some seem to have made some guesses already.

“It would be a scoop if she asks Julie Gayet to play herself!” mocked a friend of the president, according to the Le Parisien.

 

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MEDIA

French president’s ex girlfriend says she has been sacked by magazine

Valerie Trierweiler, the ex-girlfriend of former French president François Hollande, said on Thursday that she had been sacked by Paris Match magazine.

French president's ex girlfriend says she has been sacked by magazine
Valerie Trierweiler wrote a tell-all book about the former president's affair. Photo: AFP

The journalist took revenge on Hollande for spurning her for actress Julie Gayet with a sensational 2014 kiss-and-tell memoir called Thank You for This Moment, which all but sank Hollande's presidency.

The book became an instant bestseller, and Hollande, a Socialist, never lived down his alleged references to the “toothless” poor.

Trierweiler, 55, had worked for the glossy weekly as a political correspondent, interviewer and columnist for three decades.

 

“I discovered in the middle of my summer holidays in an extremely brutal way that I have been sacked from Paris Match after 30 years,” Trierweiler said on Twitter.

“This sacking was for no reason and has left me shocked and astonished,” she added.

Trierweiler was famously admitted to hospital after Hollande's affair was revealed by paparazzi images of his nightly visits by scooter to Gayet's apartment.

The politician had tried to portray himself as a safe pair of hands “Mr Normal” in contrast to his mercurial predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.

As well as spending most of her career at Paris Match, Trierweiler also interviews politicians for the French television channel Direct 8.

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