French president’s partner admits tweet ‘mistake’

French President Francois Hollande’s partner Valerie Trierweiler admitted yesterday she had made a mistake in firing off a tweet snubbing Hollande’s ex-companion and said she regretted it. “It was a mistake that I regret. I must have been clumsy because this was badly interpreted,” Trierweiler told a french newspaper. “I had not yet realized that I was no longer a simple citizen. It won’t happen again.” During Parliamentary elections in June, the 47-year-old sent out a tweet wishing good luck to an opponent of Segolene Royal — Hollande’s ex-partner. The tweet attracted widespread media coverage, with the French press calling it an embarrassment to Hollande shortly after his victory in the presidential race. “It is entirely to her credit that Valerie Trierweiler has taken the time to express her regrets,” government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said after the first lady’s interview with Ouest-France. There has long been speculation of intense rivalry between Royal and Trierweiler and a string of books have appeared chronicling the history of the love triangle. According to the accounts, Hollande first became enamored of Trierweiler back in the 1980s and they were already a couple in 2007, although he publicly pretended to be still with Royal when she ran unsuccessfully for president that year. An opinion poll released yesterday showed two-thirds of the French have a negative opinion of Trierweiler and more than 40 percent believe Hollande’s private life is having a bad impact on his image. Separately, France presented plans yesterday for a new anti-terrorism law that will allow authorities to prosecute citizens who attend militant training camps abroad. The move comes six months after Muhammad Merah, a French citizen who claimed to have attended Al-Qaeda-style training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, killed seven people in a wave of shootings in and around Toulouse. The plans were presented to Cabinet yesterday and President Francois Hollande hopes Parliament will adopt them by the end of the year, government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said. “The terrorist threat remains at a very high level in France,” she said. The reforms will allow authorities to detect “the spread of radicalism on the Internet and to identify people returning to France after training or participating in terrorist actions” abroad. The bill would amend France’s criminal code to make terrorism-related crimes committed outside France punishable in the country. Those attending training camps abroad could face up to 10 years in prison for “association with a terrorist enterprise”.