French President Francois Hollande heads to Turkey on Monday on his first trip abroad since his dramatic announcement that he had split from his longstanding partner Valerie Trierweiler, reports GlobalPost.
Hollande's visit is the first by a French head of state in 22 years and reflects a thaw in once-frosty ties, although it comes as Turkey is battling its worst political crisis in over a decade.
But much of the attention may well be focused on his revelation on Saturday that he was ending his "shared life" with Trierweiler, two weeks after a tabloid revealed he was having an affair with a younger actress.
The 59-year-old Socialist president, who was with Trierweiler for seven years, has come under fire from opponents for getting embroiled in such a public scandal about his love life.
"I believe that everybody now understands that president or not president, one is entitled to have a private life," the embattled president said in an interview with Time just hours before he announced the split.
Trierweiler, 48, meanwhile went ahead with a two-day charity mission to India on Sunday despite no longer being France's first lady.
The feisty twice-divorced journalist was herself once the other woman, remaining Hollande's secret companion as he kept up appearances with ex-partner Segolene Royal during her failed 2007 presidential campaign.
Actress Julie Gayet has kept a low profile since the scandal broke on January 10, when French gossip magazine Closer splashed photos of Hollande arriving on a motor scooter for alleged secret trysts with her at a flat near the Elysee Palace.
In Turkey however, Hollande's goal will be to try to fix damaged political and economic ties with France's NATO ally, bringing with him seven ministers and a 40-strong delegation of business leaders.
Relations took an icy turn under Hollande's rightwing predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, who was vehemently opposed to Muslim-majority Turkey joining the European club.
And they hit an all-time low after French lawmakers passed a bill in 2011 making it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I constituted genocide.
Read more of this AFP report published by GlobalPost.