With less than 90 days to go before the French presidential elections, Socialist Party candidate François Hollande remains the frontrunner in what most observers predict will be a two-horse race with outgoing President, yet still undeclared candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy. Hollande’s companion, French journalist Valérie Trierweiler, little-known to the public, has until now played a low-profile in the elections, while continuing her professional activities. Yet she has her own personal office at Hollande’s campaign HQ. Mathilde Mathieu and Michaël Hajdenberg have been trying, not without difficulty, to find out more about the true role of she who would be France’s next First Lady.
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When Socialist Party presidential candidate François Hollande officially opened his campaign headquarters in Paris earlier this month, visiting journalists made a surprising discovery. On the third floor of the building, on the avenue Ségur in Paris’ plush 7th arrondissement, figures an office with the name of Hollande’s companion, Valérie Trierweiler, on the door. Trierweiler, however, does not figure anywhere in the campaign staff list.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Trierweiler, 46, is a reporter for weekly magazine Paris Match, and host of a soon-to-launch television programme about cultural issues on French channel Direct 8. Specialised in reporting political affairs, she has been Hollande’s companion since 2006. Hollande, 57, was previously the companion of Ségolène Royal, a former minister and the Socialist Party’s defeated candidate in the 2007 presidential elections, with whom he has four children.
Officially, Trierweiler, a divorcee and mother of three children, has no specific role in Hollande’s campaign (1). In an interview published earlier this week in Télé 7 jours, she said “I am beginning to find my place”, adding that “love must now distill itself in the presidential campaign”. She said that when she accompanies Hollande on his campaign trail, it is “so that we can be together a little”. Regarding any political influence, she commented that “as an under-50 housewife, I can open his eyes onto certain things”.
Contacted by Mediapart, she refused to be interviewed on-the-record, but offered to answer our questions off-the-record. Mediapart policy is to accept off-the-record interviews only if the interviewee is otherwise placing themselves in danger, which was manifestly not the case for Trierweiler. So we turned to her communications manager, Nathalie Mercier.
Mercier also imposed her conditions, demanding that her words would not be directly presented between quote marks. We accepted this curious approach, on the basis that at least she is the named source of the information she provided. Itt was in itself a rare opportunity to discover more about Trierweiler’s role, after our attempts to interview Socialist Party officials on the subject. Neither Hollande’s official spokesman, Bruno Le Roux, nor his communications coordinator, Christian Gravel, returned our calls.
The idea that someone as timid towards media interviews as Trierweiler should have a communications manager may appear surprising. Although we cannot quote her directly, Mercier explained that she has other charges. She is a full time aide to Manuel Valls, a leading Socialist Party figure who rallied the Hollande camp after his defeat in the first round of the party’s primaries to elect its presidential candidate. Mercier also has other duties, which she said depended upon daily events. She gave the example of her role in coordinating the presence of high-profile personalities who attended Hollande’s major public meeting at Le Bourget last weekend.
Mercier, who previously worked for advertising agency Euro RSCG, and who was a communications advisor during the 2002 presidential elections for socialist candidate Lionel Jospin, is on exceptional leave from her regular job as head of communications for the Paris Quai Branley Museum. She says her work through January for Hollande’s electoral campaign is unpaid, and will only be remunerated as of February, when her salary will be paid from Hollande’s campaign funds. Trierweiler, therefore, does not employ her directly.
That she has an office all to herself within Hollande’s campaign HQ appears to be quite a privilege; Socialist Party bigwigs Michel Sapin and Vincent Peillon share one. Mercier explained that Trierweiler often, although not every day, visits the plush HQ to lunch with Hollande or meet him at the end of the day, adding that she could hardly be expected to hang around in the corridors when she did so. Mercier said that Trierweiler might give her opinion about one of the candidate’s meetings, or a speech, but her advice was limited to no more than that.
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1: The French presidential elections will be held in a two-round vote. From the first poll, on April 22nd, only the two top-scoring candidates will move on to the final, second poll to choose a winner on May 6th. This will be followed by parliamentary elections, also held over two rounds, on June 10th and 17th.
Walking a professional tightrope
Questioned about the cost of Trierweiler’s presence alongside Hollande during his recent campaign visit to the French Caribbean territories, Mercier insisted – while suggesting it was none of our business – that her travel expenses would not be included in the official campaign spending, and neither were they paid by the local authorities or by her employers, Paris-Match and TV channel Direct 8. Who paid them remained unclear.
Mercier said Trierweiler, who is employed full-time by Paris Match, only accompanied Hollande when allowed by a break in her working agenda. For the trip to the Caribbean, this lasted between a Saturday and the following Tuesday morning.
Trierweiler ceased working on political subjects for Paris Match several years ago, after beginning her relationship with Hollande, and the TV programme which she will present on Direct 8, beginning later this month, is about cultural issues.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
However, as a publicly-recognised supporter of Hollande, she apparently fears that the French audiovisual watchdog, the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA), could include her airtime as part of its calculations to ensure an even spread of access to the broadcast media by all presidential candidates and their campaign officials. Contacted by Mediapart, a CSA spokesman however said that as long as Trierweiler sticks to cultural issues, this would not be the case.
But just how she would handle events if one of her guests, such as the controversial rapper-turned-actor Joey Starr who appears in her first programme next weekend, began a public rant against President Nicolas Sarkozy is unclear, and raises a recurrent dilemma about the position of journalists who are the companions of politicians.
The body representing editorial staff at Paris Match, the Société des journalistes (SDJ), said her continued position as a reporter with the magazine causes no concern. “Everybody adores Valérie,” added the SDJ chairman Arnaud Bizot. However, the management last year announced that she had been excluded from “the editorial team’s collective activities”, referring to editorial planning meetings and putting the magazine to bed before print. Contacted by Mediapart, Paris Match editorial director Olivier Royan declined to comment.
Nathalie Mercier insisted Trierweiler encountered no problem of a conflict of interest between her professional and personal roles. But what would happen in the event that Hollande is elected president in May – could she continue her work as a journalist as if isolated from political pressure? The owner of Paris Match is the Lagardère Group, with interests in both publishing and aeronautics, while Direct 8 is owned by the Bolloré Group, with activities in the energy and transport industries. Trierweiler has never officially commented on the issue, kicking it to the sidelines until the winner of the elections is announced on the night of the final, second-round vote May 7th.
Mercier explained that, at present, Trierweiler was only concerned with Hollande’s campaign - although, from what we are told, she also isn’t.
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The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version: Graham Tearse