Valerie Trierweiler Pisses Off François Hollande’s Kids

Quelle horreur! Just a few days short of Bastille Day (it’s Saturday, for anyone who hasn’t yet wearied of tricolor-streaked revolution fetes), newly-minted French President François Hollande finds himself in the midst of a family scuffle. After Hollande’s domestic partner Valerie Trierweiler caused a Twitter maelstrom supporting a political opponent of Hollande’s former partner Ségolène Royal, young Thomas Hollande, the president’s son, has publicly criticized the French “first lady.”

Royal is the mother to all four of Hollande’s brood of young adult children, which puts Trierweiler in socially untenable position. Speaking on behalf of the other siblings, Thomas said that none of Hollande’s children wanted to have anything to do with Trierweiler after the Twitter incident. “I felt really sorry for my father,” said Thomas. “He really hates it when people talk about his private life. It destroys the normal image he has built.”

In the wake of the drama-filled, yacht-littered presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, Thomas Hollande had tried to pass himself off as just your normal, everyday guy, an image that, since Trierweiler’s tweet and the ensuing familial fallout, has been somewhat tarnished. Thomas Hollande has cited Trierweiler’s dueling (and somewhat dissonant) roles as French first lady and journalist, saying, “It’s a cause of instability. Either she’s a journalist, or she has an office at the Elysee.”

For her part, Trierweiler has reportedly recognized how maybe criticizing their mother isn’t the best way to endear herself to the Hollande kids (then again, she’s a smart professional and maybe she doesn’t give a fuck whether some stupid 20-year-olds are butt hurt about their mom losing an election and being ridiculed in the French media). According to a friend (who may or may not have been François Hollande wearing a pair of ridiculous disguise glasses), Trierweiler said that she “made a mistake” in not calculating the political damage her tweet would inflict on Royal.

Francois Hollande’s Own Son Has Launched a Scathing Attack On France’s ‘First Lady’ [Business Insider]