François Hollande faced the French and international press on Tuesday and staunchly refused to answer any questions about his private life.
The French president opened his press conference with a long discourse about his plans for the rest of his term in office.
He spoke about his "responsibility pact" to reduce charges for business and cut red tape in exchange for promises that they will employ more staff.
He spoke about cutting public spending by €15bn (£12.5bn) this year and a further €50bn by 2017.
He spoke about more jobs for youngsters and teachers, about an end to the "excess and abuse" in the health system and about antisemitism, racism and xenophobia, which he said "will not be tolerated".
Hollande talked about assisted suicide for "every adult suffering unendurable pain", he rattled on about Europe and pledged it was the "future of France" and that "France is the future of Europe". He said he wouldn't let Eurosceptics, "even governments", destroy what had been achieved.
He hardly drew breath as he went on to praise French troops currently serving in Mali and the Central African Republic and spoke of a "surprising" proposition: a military alliance with Germany.
He even spared a thought for French journalists being held hostage around the world.
However, Hollande, 59, refused to say a word about the scandal sweeping France about his alleged relationship with a 41-year-old actor.
The first question he was asked after his long and detailed address, was whether Valérie Trierweiler was still first lady, after claims by Closer magazine that he had been enjoying secret trysts with Julie Gayet at an apartment just a stone's throw from the Elysée Palace.
The question drew breaths in the opulent Salle des Fêtes at the Elysée, packed with 500 journalists under the crystal chandeliers.
"I understand your question and you will understand my response. Everyone goes through difficult, painful periods in their lives and that is our case," Hollande said, adding that he believed "private matters must be resolved in private" and that he would not answer any questions on the affair now, but promised to "clarify the situation" before flying to the US in February to meet President Barack Obama.
Hollande said he would not be seeking to tighten France's already strict privacy laws.
"I'm protected, but my indignation is total. Total," he said, his voice rising. "It's not just personal, it touches all of you. It touches a fundamental freedom: the respect for private life and dignity France is a country of great freedom, but we need to have respect for private lives and for dignity."
Then it was back to tax cuts, the economy, jobs, what he has done in the past 18 months and what he plans to do in the next three years.
Hollande was repeating a message he had first voiced in 2012 shortly after his election. "I am for a clear distinction between public and private life," Hollande said in an interview given to TF1 television and France 2 in July 2012 a few weeks after he took office. "I believe that private affairs should be sorted out in private."
The honeymoon did not last long. A few weeks later during the legislative elections, Hollande's partner, the Paris Match journalist Valérie Trierweiler, 48, made a disastrous call.
In what was said to be a fit of jealousy, she tweeted in favour of the political rival of Hollande's former partner and mother of his four children, Ségolène Royal, then standing for election.
The ill-advised tweet caused a storm in France where it was called "tweetgate". The president and his children were said to be furious. The public never forgave her.
"She was jealous of the past, but she'd have done better being jealous of the future," political commentator Catherine Nay said this week.
On Tuesday, French media was reporting that certain officials at the Elysée were furious with Trierweiler believing that, terrified Hollande about to leave her, she is engaged in "emotional blackmail". "She's not the sort to react to such thing discreetly," one told Le Parisien.
The comment that she is not about to walk out and "slam the door" on their relationship and is "prepared to forgive" Hollande, suggests a certain amount of face-saving after a very public humiliation.
The revelation that her partner had been sneaking out of the Elysée to make the 165-metre journey to a flat in a nearby street for secret trysts with Gayet, hit Trierweiler like "a TGV hitting the buffers".
As friends of Trierweiler told journalists she was taking a few days to reflect on their relationship, sympathy for her appeared in short supply.
François Rebsamen, head of the Socialist group in the upper house, admitted it was a "terrible shock to see the life of the person with whom you live exposed and presented to the French in this way," but added the first lady title should be banned.
"There shouldn't be a first lady, it's finished," Rebsamen told RTL radio. "There's a more important consideration that the president of the republic should have and that is over the role and position of the person with whom he lives. There is no first lady in France. This practice is outdated, outmoded and must be banned. It would be a step forward for democracy."
Rebsamen also defended the president's right to privacy.
"François Hollande himself said it at one point: you elect a person. And then this person can live alone, can be single, can live with another man or a woman. It's nobody's business and it doesn't come into play."
Some French commentators had expressed concerns about how photographer Sébastien Valiela was able to take pictures of the president coming and going from the flat borrowed by Gayet, without his security team noticing.
"He took risks," said Valiela. "The president was badly protected."
It also emerged that Valiela was the photographer who took the first published pictures of Hollande's Socialist predecessor François Mitterrand, who had a secret family, and his daughter, then aged 20.
However, Hollande told journalists his security was not compromised. "Everywhere, my security is assured. Everywhere. You don't need to worry about that," he told the press.
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