Valerie Trierweiler has arrived in India for a
charity visit following her split from President Hollande.
The former First Lady arrived at Mumbai airport
soon after midnight local time and was swamped with photographers as she made
her way to a waiting limousine.
Ms Trierweiler's webpage on the official Elysee
Palace website has already been removed, along with her official Twitter
account.
Her five staff office at the Elysee has also been
shut down, and she is not expected to enter the palace again.
Ms Trierweiler was swamped by photographers as she
was escorted to a waiting limousine
Ms Trierweiler was wearing a dark trouser suit and
looked relaxed and happy after enjoying first class service on the Air France
plane.
Three bodyguards and a number of Indian Army
soldiers tried to keep the crowds back as Ms Trierweiler smiled broadly and
waived regally without commenting.
Ms Trierweiler got into the back of a waiting black
limousine by herself and continued to smile and waive as she was driven to the
five star Taj Majal Palace hotel.
Ms Trierweiler's webpage has already been deleted
from the Elysee Palace website as has her Twitter account
Valerie Trierweiler smiles as she is taken through
the airport by security
The rest of her entourage followed in a second
limousine.
Her arrival comes within a few hours of the
president confirming his separation from the firebrand 48-year-old with a
brusque 18 word statement.
Despite the split, Ms Trierweiler has made clear
she wants to remain on the world stage.
It led to her being widely mocked by senior women
politicians, with former health minister Roselyne Bachelot tweeting: ‘Valerie –
the new Diana?’
Despite losing her perks, Trierweiler (pictured
today) was driven to Charles de Gaulle airport in a limousine accompanied by
police outriders, and will have a bodyguard with her in India
Police secure Trierweiler's route. French president
Francois Hollande announced yesterday that the couple have officially split
The late Princess Diana and self-styled ‘Queen of
Hearts’ famously devoted herself to humanitarian and charitable causes
following her divorce from Prince Charles.
Diana was always a member of the Royal Family but
Ms Trierweiler, in contrast, has now officially lost her title of first lady,
and all the perks that go with it.
Earlier today, she was driven on to the runway at
Charles de Gaulle airport in a limousine accompanied by police outriders, and
will have a bodyguard and her old chief of staff, Patrice Biancone, with her in
India.
But an Elysee Palace aide said this was solely to
ensure they can ‘keep an eye’ on a woman who is now viewed as a loose cannon
who could do a great deal of harm to Mr Hollande.
It will be the last time Ms Trierweiler enjoys
government support on a foreign trip, the aide insisted.
The twice divorced Paris Match journalist nicknamed
‘The Rottweiler’ has been briefing the media ever since photographs were
published on January 10th which proved the president was having an affair with
the actress Julie Gayet, 41.
Ms Trierweiler is seen leaving the presidential
summer residence of La Lanterne in Versailles ahead of her trip
Ms Trierweiler is said to have smashed up antique
furniture on hearing of her then boyfriend’s cheating, and then spent eight
days in a public hospital suffering from stress
Francois Hollande kisses Ms Trierweiler after his
election victory in Bastille Square in Paris, in May 2012
Ms Trierweiler is thought to be behind reports in
today’s Le Parisien which contain ‘a friend’ saying: ‘What’s sad for her, is
not so much leaving the Elysee and all its decorum, but losing the man whom she
loves’.
She refused to sign a legal agreement confirming
the split, leaving Mr Hollande to awkwardly announce it by himself in a phone
call to French news agency AFP on Saturday.
Ms Trierweiler is said to have smashed up antique
furniture on hearing of her then boyfriend’s cheating, and then spent eight
days in a public hospital suffering from stress.
She then moved to La Lanterne, the hugely luxurious
presidential retreat in Versailles, west of Paris, which comes complete with
heated swimming pool and wine cellar.
Such behaviour infuriated ordinary French people,
who have seen Mr Hollande’s Socialist policies plunge the country into economic
disaster.
Mr Hollande, who had never married, is now expected
to remain a 'bachelor president' for a while, while continuing with his
relationship with Ms Gayet outside the Elysee.
Organised and partly funded by the charity Action
Contre La Faim (Fight Against Hunger, ACF), the trip to India will see Ms
Trierweiler staying at the five star Taj Palace Hotel in Mumbai.
One of her trips in India will be to a children’s
hospital, and her friend Charlotte Valandrey – who is accompanying her on the
trip – said today: ‘This is a strong woman, a woman of heart, who is engaged in
the ACF project since long before Francois Hollande became president’.
Nadine Morano, another former minister, said she
had ‘no sympathy’ for Ms Trierweiler, and that the whole saga proved how much
the Socialist government was ‘prepared to lie’ to the people of France.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the Front National,
in turn said that Ms Trierweiler had not even divorced her second husband, and
attacked Mr Hollande for having four children out of wedlock.
‘Exemplary president?’ tweeted Mr Pen. ‘Not in
private – four children out of marriage and a non-divorced mistress whom he
couldn’t even be faithful to!’
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