French ex-first lady Valerie Trierwieler describes shock over affair

Paris: France's former first lady says she and the president had grown detached recently but she was caught totally by surprise by his affair with an actress.

Valerie Trierweiler gave interviews to two French publications coming out this week describing for the first time some of what led to their breakup last weekend.

Trierweiler told the weekly Paris-Match, where she long worked as a journalist, that she didn't believe rumors about the affair until a gossip magazine report earlier this month. "When I found out, it was like I had fallen from a skyscraper," she is quoted as saying.

She told the weekly Le Parisien Magazine that she and the president exchanged text messages while she was in India this week because he was worried about her health.