Henpecked Hollande caught between Trierweiler, Royal

Paris: Tensions between France’s new presidential couple could end up making Nicolas Sarkozy’s conjugal turbulence seem mild by comparison.

It has emerged that Francois Hollande, the newly elected president, was threatened on the telephone by Valerie Trierweiler, the first lady, weeks ago when she learnt he had issued a public message of support for Segolene Royal, his former girlfriend and the mother of his four children, in her campaign to become an MP in just concluded parliamentary elections.

“You did it without warning me,” Trierweiler told the president, according to Le Point magazine. “You’ll see what I’m capable of.”

Hollande used to laugh at Sarkozy, his predecessor, for turning politics into soap opera and parading his tumultuous love life in public. Now the tables have turned as the French Socialist leader reluctantly stars in a drama that could be billed as All the President’s Women.

Trierweiler, who has insisted on continuing to work as a journalist at Paris Match, tweeted lavish praise on a rebel Socialist candidate who is running against Royal in defiance of orders from the party hierarchy to pull out of the race.

Figure of fun

Besides prompting complaints about a jealous “first girlfriend” meddling in politics, it cast doubt over the president’s authority and turned him once again into a figure of fun.

He used to be compared to a wobbly caramel pudding but now satirists are seizing on the “Tweetweiler” affair to depict him as a weak, henpecked president in an uncomfortable menage a trois.

The television puppet show Les Guignols de l’Info last week showed him cowering in the middle as the women hurled abuse at him and each other.

It all seems a long way from the “normal” presidency promised by Hollande as an antidote to the previous regime in which “Sarko” became the first French president to divorce and remarry in office.

The French press has suggested that Trierweiler may be suffering from “Rebecca syndrome” after the Daphne du Maurier novel in which the male character’s second wife becomes obsessed with Rebecca, his dead first spouse.

Possessive partner

Trierweiler certainly seems sensitive about Royal. She is reported to have prevented Royal and her children from attending Hollande’s swearing-in ceremony last month; and when Hollande kissed Royal on the cheek on the eve of the election victory, Trierweiler pulled Hollande to her and commanded: “Now kiss me on the mouth.”

She complained to a magazine that referred to children born to the “Hollande-Royal couple” saying it should have referred to the “former Hollande-Royal couple”. She also confessed to the authors of a book about French first ladies that although a Socialist all her life, she could not bring herself to vote for Royal when she stood for president in 2007.

As Hollande’s election campaign got into swing earlier this year, Trierweiler had Royal edited out of a film of recent Socialist history even though, as the party’s unsuccessful candidate against Sarkozy, Royal was the first French woman to have come so close to the presidency.

The anti-Royal message from Trierweiler, known as “la Rottweiler” on account of an aggressive streak, may have been one tweet too far.

“Francois will really have to do something to rein in Valerie,” a presidential aide said.

“So far, nobody has dared to raise the subject. But now it is out in the open.”

Controversial tweet

A tearful Royal said she was “deeply hurt” by the Trierweiler tweet: having lost a presidential election, the contest for the Socialist leadership and the party primary last year, she is almost certain to lose on Sunday in the port city of La Rochelle.

Eager to contribute to Hollande’s first crisis, conservatives whose candidate was eliminated in the first round have switched support to Olivier Falorni, the Socialist running against Royal.

It turned out that Falorni, who has been expelled from the party for his disobedience, was an old friend of Trierweiler and Hollande, and let them use his house as a love nest at the start of their romance, when Hollande was still living with Royal.

Royal and Hollande kept up a pretence of togetherness so as not to damage her election campaign in 2007.

But she blamed him for her defeat by Sarkozy, claiming that as the Socialist party’s first secretary, he could have helped her more. According to some accounts, Trierweiler stopped him being more supportive.

Royal has never forgiven him and in the party’s primary contest last year challenged voters to think of “just one thing” that he had achieved in his 30-year political career.

Rewarding Royal

When Hollande won that contest, however, she endorsed him and he is eager to reward her. Royal wanted more than anything to become parliamentary Speaker and Hollande promised to support her.

Her defeat, however, would disqualify her from that job.

Nor does Hollande have the option of making her a minister — under the new rules, ministers must also be elected as MPs.

The fear in the Elysee is that an embittered Royal will blame Hollande and his girlfriend for her defeat and dedicate her considerable energy not to another political campaign but to getting even with them — perhaps in a kiss-and-tell memoir of life with Hollande.

That is more than enough to keep the president awake at night.