Thank You for This Moment Page 5

  After Sarah left I went to see my assistants. I sat in their office, wearing my evening gown and my 6-inch heels. I had not eaten a thing since the previous day and I so was exhausted I could hardly move.

  My team told me that the young man I had danced with was part of the show – his name was Brahim Zaibat. He was Madonna’s ex-boyfriend and the video of us dancing together was starting to create a buzz on the internet! I had not known who he was. He later admitted that he did not know who I was either. We were even.

  My phone rang – it was François: ‘Do you want to come and greet Merkel?’

  He never normally suggested anything like that.

  ‘When?’

  ‘In five minutes.’

  I could not meet her in an evening dress. I kicked off my shoes and took the stairs four by four to our private apartment. I hurriedly changed my dress and shoes and ran straight back down to wait in the hall by the President’s side – ready to welcome the Chancellor.

  Our exchange was pleasant. I was meeting her for the first time. She said she was pleased to meet me and would very much like it if we double-dated for the Bayreuth festival. I replied in the affirmative, saying I would be delighted. Then François and Angela Merkel went off for a working session before dinner.

  I was finally able to go and rest before heading off to a long-standing dinner engagement I had.

  I lay down on my bed, completely worn out. François’ kindness that day had not been enough to make me forget the violence of his words the day before. When I got back from my dinner he was already asleep and he left for a European Council in Brussels the next morning. We barely had time to exchange a few words over breakfast. Discussing personal matters was not an option, as my son and the staff were there.

  I decided to write him a long letter to take to Brussels and had it sent to his office. I explained that his behaviour the previous day was unacceptable: under French law he had a ‘duty to assist’, and he had failed even that by leaving me alone without calling a doctor. Had I still needed proof that he had fallen out of love with me, he had just given me undeniable evidence.

  In my letter I told him I still loved him but that things could not go on as they were. Obviously I could understand his heavy workload and how difficult his role was to carry. But was it necessary, I asked, to be spiteful or – worse still – indifferent? Our love deserved more than that. How could power have stifled a love so strong, so violent? I felt stifled too. I needed to get some air. I needed him to show me some emotion and respect.

  When he returned two days later we had a conversation. A difficult conversation. Incredibly so. He brought up the bad blood between us. He criticised me, said I had become impossible to live with. Unsurprisingly, since I was perpetually tense and nervous, animosity had grown between us – we had started clashing over nothing at all. His indifference affected me so much that I was in a state of permanent suffering.

  I wasn’t sure which one of us had changed.

  He had started avoiding me, could no longer stand having me by his side in public. He did not consider me, he never looked at me or waited for me and his little asides to me were ever rarer. Even the photographers had noticed. Zoom lenses are to feelings what microscopes are to germs.

  François reminded me of the ‘tweet business’: ‘It caused a lot of damage between us. Maybe we should have separated back then,’ he said.

  It struck me as unfair because he knew what was what. He was well aware of the circumstances. I am not trying to exonerate myself from this faux pas. I have borne all the consequences, and the incident continues to haunt me today, so I am fully aware that I was wrong. Yet, had he not lied to me that day – one time too many – nothing would have happened. I would not have written those few irreparable words.

  The whole business started even before the presidential elections, when victory was in sight and Ségolène Royal was dreaming out loud of a prestigious post. After losing the presidential race five years earlier, her heart was set on becoming President of the National Assembly.

  François and I had discussed it several times. He was not in favour of it.

  He knew the price he would to have to pay if she succeeded – the political complications would be endless and the media would be merciless. No one could deny their personal links – and I would certainly never have presumed to do so. They have four children together – nothing is more precious. But Ségolène Royal’s hypothetical ascension to the Presidency of the National Assembly would have fed the love triangle media machine – and we had all already suffered more than enough at its hands.

  Several legal experts had also warned François that there was no precedent for a personal link between the executive power and the legislative power. And for good reason: the Constitution requires the separation of powers. Since 1875, the President is not allowed in the National Assembly or the Parliament.

  Picture François Hollande as President and the mother of his children as President of the National Assembly. A sure-fire recipe for never-ending controversy. François knew it but he let Ségolène Royal chase after her dream regardless. In fact, he even encouraged her. He promised a prominent post when she rallied after the first round of the Socialist Party primary elections. Meanwhile she officially endorsed him, rather than backing his rival candidate, Martine Aubry. But, unofficially, he was adamant that he did not want her to be part of the State trinity. Such duplicitous behaviour did not surprise me. Countless times when he was First Secretary of the Socialist Party, I heard him encourage a candidate and then do everything in his power to prevent said candidate from getting the investiture.

  He thought nothing of underhandedly blocking an election and letting other people carry the can. He was a politician through and through – it was written into every fibre of his body. Tactics were second nature to him.

  After the first round of the June 2012 legislative elections, Ségolène Royal was not in good stead. She had been parachuted to La Rochelle after leaving her historical fiefdom to another candidate. But the citizens of that city were attached to the local candidate, who had suddenly become, in the Socialist Party’s official rhetoric, a party ‘dissident’. Olivier Falorni was a long-term Socialist Party member and followed close on her heels in the first round of the elections.

  I was at the electoral event held at the Élysée, in the green living room, which adjoins the presidential office. A couple of dozen computers had been set up on the table. There were a lot of people breaking down and analysing the results as they came in. I knew very few of them. Electoral fever had spread, the air was heavy with it – I knew and loved that atmosphere. A buffet was being served in the next room.

  François analysed the results. The subtext was the Ségolène Royal issue. Shaking his head, he said: ‘She doesn’t stand a chance anymore. She is leading with 32 per cent, but Falorni is right behind with a 3 per cent gap. He is well established. He will easily gather support in the second round.’

  ‘You won’t do anything to support her, will you?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he promised, ‘you have nothing to worry about, I won’t do anything, I have made a commitment not to.’

  ‘Falorni is a good guy, he’s always been loyal to you, you know that.’

  ‘Yes, he’s a good guy.’

  Ever the conscientious politician, he nevertheless called the dissident candidate to – half-heartedly – ask him to stand down. Falorni refused to pull out of the race, and everyone was pretty clear on how things stood.

  I went to bed a little before midnight. I was reassured, as I had feared more media frenzy. The press had had so much fun with our rivalry – the whole ‘Hollande and his two women’ … It wounded me deeply. A few days before the 15 May 2012 inaugural ceremony, two journalists – journalists I knew well, at that – called me to ask whether I would be attending the ceremony.

  One of them commented: ‘Why would you be there if Ségolène Royal isn’t?’

  The other one asked: ‘In what cap
acity will you be attending?’

  My voice was trembling when I replied: ‘I don’t know. I am supposed to become First Lady, aren’t I?’ I felt so undermined that it was the best I could come up with.

  I was unworthy in their eyes too. Even though I had been with François for five years – officially; in reality it was seven – I still had not earned my place by his side.

  François had reassured me; I felt relieved that the spectre of an unmanageable ménage à trois was receding. We stayed at the Élysée apartment that night, rather than going home to rue Cauchy. I even slept on his side of the bed – I trusted him with every fibre of my being. He had a short night – he stayed up waiting for the full results. I did not hear him slide into bed next to me.

  He left very early the next morning. We listened to the radio together, briefly – that was all we had time for. I took my time getting ready and went down to my office a little later. As usual, I went through the AFP feed on my iPhone. I suddenly discovered a news item marked ‘Urgent’: ‘François Hollande supports Ségolène Royal.’

  The news report stabbed me in the heart. The piece was understated: ‘Ségolène Royal is the presidential majority’s sole candidate in the Charente-Maritime constituency. She has my support and backing’ – François Hollande, President, Monday 11 June 2012.

  Which meant he had lied to me and, at the same time, reneged on a commitment he had made. Why had he not been honest the previous evening when he and I talked it over? Why had he not tried to explain that he had no other choice? Why not tell me that Ségolène Royal was putting pressure on him and that their children had interceded on their mother’s behalf? I expect I would have raged against him at first but I would have bowed down eventually. He knows all too well that I am, first and foremost, a mother – I would have understood. He did not have the courage to come to me about it. He had just broken a public pledge he had brandished like an oath. To make matters worse, he had done it for personal reasons. And lied to me in the process. Again.

  I called François immediately. I was fuming. I warned him I would support Falorni. I was outraged by the fate he had been abandoned to. After tirelessly devoting himself to his constituents for years, the Socialist Party had simply declared him a dissident candidate. It was a double sentence. François knew that he had pushed things too far this time, he knew that I was beyond furious. ‘Hold on a minute! I’m on my way,’ he said. ‘Meet me upstairs.’ Like an arsonist rushing to put out his own fire.

  We met between the presidential floor and our room – in a room where Mitterrand had stored his books and his golf clubs. The Sarkozys had turned it into a children’s room. I turned it into my office. I hung pictures of my sons when they were little and a few of my mementoes – mementoes I wanted to keep from the prying eyes of the visitors I saw in the formal office immediately below. I would always end up retiring to my office at some point in the day to escape the heavy atmosphere in the Palace.

  But this time the tension had crept into the office. The atmosphere was oppressive, the way it is minutes before a storm, when the first dry flashes of lightning streak the sky and the crashes of thunder are coming. I was bursting with anger. It was our biggest fight since we had met. I could not fathom his betrayal. The very least he could have done was not to lie to me. If only he had been able to tell me face to face: ‘Please understand, I have no choice – I have to do it for my children’ … I can understand a mother’s importance. I am a mother. I would have tried – I really would have tried – to recognise that. He did his best to calm me down, claiming he had had nothing to do with it and that the Secretary General of the Élysée had handled the whole thing. That was the coup de grâce: it was a ludicrous lie. The Secretary General himself later denied this pathetic fabrication. In fact, he had tried to stop Hollande from giving Ségolène Royal his support because it mixed everything up, personal life and public life. He was not the only adviser who tried to dissuade Hollande from backing her, either.

  François did it anyway. His decision awoke my deep-rooted feeling of being illegitimate – a feeling that had deeply damaged me ever since we had made our relationship official. During our argument I warned François that I intended to tweet my support for Falorni. He did everything he could to stop me – even attempting to snatch my phone out of my hands – but gave up before things escalated any further. I sat on the small bed against the wall and started to write my 140 characters.

  I deliberately chose to wish Olivier Falorni ‘good luck’, rather than ‘support’ him. I thought that he might throw the towel in as a result of the President pledging his support to Ségolène Royal. I knew Falorni, in fact I had had a brief conversation on the phone with him the previous day. He was worried that the President might lend his rival a helping hand but I had reassured him that no such thing would happen. The President had personally guaranteed it. For all I knew, Falorni would be discouraged by the Socialist Party’s betrayal and would stand down. I worded my tweet specifically so it would fit either scenario.

  Anger clouded rationality. I wrote the message with a steady hand. My hand did not tremble either when I sent out the message to my Twitter followers. It was 11.56. ‘Good luck to Olivier Falorni who has proved his worth and fought alongside the people of La Rochelle for many years with selfless commitment.’

  I could not have imagined for a second the explosive reaction it would provoke. That short sentence spread like wildfire over the internet, it was picked up, retweeted, commented on millions of times and I was not aware of it. Blindsided by the President’s lie, I walked right into the lion’s den.

  I immediately sent a text message to two people to inform them – Olivier Falorni and my Chief of Staff, Patrice Biancone. Patrice came to see me immediately. He, for one, had realistically assessed the scale of the catastrophe. His phone started to vibrate non-stop, then mine followed suit. The press was out in force. I only answered the AFP’s question: had my account been pirated or was I the person who had written that tweet? I owned my tweet. Then I retired, I locked myself up, cut myself off from the world – as I always do when my world is shaken.

  In spite of everything I did not cancel my lunch with an editor. It had been arranged for my book review column in Paris-Match. Unsurprisingly, the first thing she mentioned was the tweet. Seeing that I had not realised how far-reaching the consequences of my actions had been, she told me what she had heard in the cab on her way – the growing controversy and bewilderment. It had made front covers all over the media, I had become the disgraced First Lady. The one who dared speak out about politics, the one who spoke out of line – opposing the President’s official message. I was the destroyer of the Socialist Party’s project and, above all, the jealous woman who wanted to see Ségolène Royal fall from grace.

  Which is precisely the reason why the editor offered me an inordinate advance for a book contract. Naturally I turned it down on the spot.

  François came to see me a few hours later. He too had immediately assessed the damage but he has a wonderful quality – he always looks forward and never dwells on what is done. How could we get out of this situation? That was the only thing he was concerned about. I had no idea. He was absolutely furious. He told me he planned to stay at the Élysée that evening and have dinner with his children and expected me to return home, to rue Cauchy, alone with my son. I did not argue.

  The next day he met me at our flat but he was still angry and he barely said a word to me. He had built a wall of silence around himself – his silences always hurt me deeply. I hated those evenings when we were strangers to each other – alone together. I did not know whether he was even aware of it.

  Since the next day was the second round of the legislative elections, François and his advisers were worried that the tweet would have a negative impact on the results. Comments from journalists and ‘leading experts’ in political forecasts amounted to the same thing: with these 140 characters I had just cost the Socialist Party at least fifty seats.

/>   In spite of his irritation with me, François honoured a promise made to my youngest son. The three of us were meant to have dinner in a restaurant that François had wanted to take us to. François could have cancelled: I would have understood and so would Léonard. But over the last seven years François had seen my son grow. He had known him as a child and the two of them got on well. He wanted to make him happy and he kept his promise. Luckily, Léonard chatted away happily but on several occasions I caught François looking slightly lost. I realised how much I had hurt him.

  I told him I was prepared to issue a public apology. He refused: he did not want me to make any more public statements. He was concerned it would only stoke up the fire. But the embers were still glowing and were not dying down; it was all still smouldering under the surface. I should have followed my instinct and released an apology statement.

  I sent a text message to two of François’ children to apologise. Thomas, his eldest, answered with harsh words. Implicitly, though, his message highlighted the heart of the matter: that he and his brothers and sisters – just like most children whose parents have started over with someone else – refused to accept his parents’ separation. We were definitely caught up in a private imbroglio.

  The next day, François and I went to a painting exhibition, right next to the Élysée. Obviously, you would have been hard pushed to say there was any warmth between us, François was very distant. In fact I saw him very little until the following Monday: he spent his time at the Élysée.

  When we were alone, he would bring up my ‘negative image’. He was worried I would become contagious. All he could think about was himself.