The Hollande-Trierweiler passage in the rich history of French scandals has ended badly for both, contributing to morbid forces of disunion at work in contemporary French society.
Until the announcement — indeed the proclamation — was made the weekend before last by the President of the French Republic that Valerie Trierweiler had been dismissed as the royal favorite, the French public had contentedly assured its foreign friends of the amusement provided by the affair, and its sophisticated indifference to their president's sentimental imbroglios.
But the French have been shaken by Francois Hollande's curt, 18-word termination of his relationship with the companion, who two years ago was "the woman of my life," and who recklessly claimed to be the "First Lady" of France (with office and staff in the presidential palace) — a title unknown in France since the 1930s, when the last president of the Third Republic, Albert Lebrun, made a state visit to the United States and amused French journalists picked up the term to describe his wife.