French President Francois Hollande said Saturday that he had told those close to him to resolve personal issues in private, reacting to an incendiary tweet by his partner Valerie Trierweiler. “Private affairs are resolved in private. And I have told this to those close to me so they can scrupulously accept this principle,” Hollande said during a televised interview with TF1 and France 2 on Bastille Day. The tweet at the height of France’s parliamentary election campaign last month saw Trierweiler backing an opponent of Segolene Royal, the president’s ex-partner and mother of their four children. The tweet received widespread media coverage with the French press calling it an “embarrassment” to Hollande. “I think the French people are like me, they want things to be clear, that there is no interference” between the president’s private and public life, Hollande said. Hollande also sought to douse speculation that Trierweiler, who attended the Bastille Day military parade with the president, was not appearing with him after the tweet.
