François Hollande denies he is about to announce split from partner
Élysée Palace dismisses reports that French president will reveal separation from Valerie Trierweiler after alleged affair
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France's president, François Hollande, whose new economic plans have been sidelined by news of his alleged affair. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images
The French president, François Hollande, has rejected rumours that he will announce his separation from his partner, Valerie Trierweiler, on Saturday following a media storm over allegations he is having an affair with an actor.
Trierweiler, 48, Hollande's partner since 2006, was planning to travel to India on Sunday for a charity trip and the president wanted to settle the issue of their future before her departure, the Journal du Dimanche reported.
"The press release from the Élysée Palace should be released sometime today," the respected national weekly said on its website, without citing its sources.
However, the Élysée Palace described talk of an imminent split as "false rumours".
A spokesman for the president declined to comment on the report, and Trierweiler's spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.
Two weeks ago the celebrity magazine Closer published a report that Hollande was having an affair with the French actor Julie Gayet. It ran pictures of what it said was the president wearing a motorcycle helmet arriving via scooter to visit Gayet at night.
The ensuing media storm has diverted public attention from a shift Hollande has made this month towards more business-friendly policies, which he hopes will revive the eurozone's second-biggest economy in the face of high unemployment.
A press conference to unveil the economic plans was overshadowed by questions over Hollande's private life, as was a trip to Rome to meet the pope on Friday.
Hollande, 59, is the most unpopular president in modern France, according to polls. He has struggled to live up to a promise to get unemployment, currently stuck near 11%, on a firm downward trend.
He has four children from a previous relationship with Ségolène Royal, a senior member of his Socialist party and a 2007 presidential candidate. Royal announced their separation just after she lost the 2007 election to Nicolas Sarkozy.
Trierweiler, an arts columnist for the weekly magazine Paris Match, is not married to Hollande but assumed the role of First Lady at official functions after his election in May 2012.
