The new year could hardly have started off worse for François Hollande, already facing rising unemployment figures and the lowest approval ratings ever for a French president, reports Channel 4 News.
Now he is dealing with claims that he is having an affair with a French actress – allegations that have resulted in his partner Valérie Trierweiler being admitted to hospital because of stress. And all that before the first official press conference of the year, due to be held on Tuesday afternoon.
Daily Le Parisien on Monday quoted a source close to Ms Trierweiler as saying that she is "ready to forgive" Mr Hollande, depending on what he has to say about his "intentions".
The presidential couple were undergoing a "few days of reflection", the source said, adding that Mr Hollande had informed his partner of the claims himself.
"The news hit Valérie like a TGV hitting the buffers," Le Parisien quoted one of Ms Trierweiler’s friends as saying. "She was completely stunned. Of course she had heard the rumours going around Paris for weeks, but she wanted to believe they were false. To her, they [Trierweiler and Hollande] are still a couple".
The first lady, a journalist for celebrity magazine Paris Match, has been in a relationship with the French president for several years. She appeared alongside him during his campaign, and has been received at the Elysee Palace with all the preferential treatment expected.
But rumours of Mr Hollande’s affair with the French actress Julie Gayet have been circulating for weeks. She previously admitted that he had visited her on set at a recent film and described him as "formidable" during his campaign trail.
Then Closer magazine published a series of photos showing the president's bodyguards checking an apartment that Ms Gayet was in, then Mr Hollande travelling to the aprtment via scooter and staying there all night. The final - and very Parisian - piece of the puzzle was a photo of Mr Hollande's bodyguard arriving with a bag of croissants the next morning at 8am.
Rumours of the affair have clearly shaken the first lady. But the eyes of the world have been on the French public to see how the country famous for its liberal attitude to relationships – and for its strict privacy laws - would react to their president's misdemeanours. Former French president Francois Mitterrand kept a mistress for years, and they had a daughter who appeared in public at his funeral.
So what of attitudes towards the current president? Francois Hollande's approval ratings had already dipped below 30 per cent during his time in office. But a poll by Ifop showed 84 percent of the public had not changed their opinion about Hollande following news of the affair and that 77 percent considered it "a private affair that only concerns Francois Hollande".
Ifop analyst Frederic Dabi said: "In fact, he is already so unpopular that there is no change."
Read more of this report from Channel 4 News.