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Presidential office denies reports Hollande will announce separation from Valérie Trierweiler President Hollande confirms separation from Valérie Trierweiler, who therefore loses First Lady status
(about 3 hours later)
François Hollande’s office has denied reports that he was due to announce his split from Valérie Trierweiler this afternoon. President François Hollande tonight announced his separation from the First Lady Valérie Trierweiller.
French media reported that the President was expected to formally announce his separation from the First Lady amid the ongoing scandal over his alleged affair with an actress. In a brief statement , Mr Hollande, said that he was “making it known” that he had “put an end to his shared life”  with Ms Trierweiller – and therefore her semi-official status as First Lady.
But a spokesman for the Elysee Palace has told the BBC the rumours are untrue. It is understood that Ms Trierweiler, 48, refused to put her name to the declaration to make it clear that the decision to sever their eight year unmarried partnership was Mr Hollande’s alone.
He said: “There will be no announcement today [Saturday]. They are false rumours circulating in the French media.” The announcement came just over two weeks after Closer magazine revealed that President Hollande was having an affair with the 41 years old actress Julie Gayet. The President had promised to “clarify” the position of his unmarried First Lady before 9 February when the couple were scheduled to fly to Washingon to visit the Obamas.
Ms Trierweiler, who has been with Mr Hollande since 2006, was reportedly planning to travel to India on a charity trip. Mr Hollande may have felt that he could delay no longer after Ms Trierweiler, 48, let it be known that she intended to fly to India on a humanitarian visit on Sunday. Although the trip is privately funded, Ms Trierweiler would, in effect, have been travelling to Bombay with the informal status of Premiere Dame or First Lady.
The President, 59, was thought to be keen to settle their relationship difficulties before her departure, according to the Journal du Dimanche. She will now travel as a private citizen but her first public appearance since the scandal broke is likely to be anything but private.
The scandal broke when celebrity magazine Closer published several pages of photographs claiming to show Mr Hollande and Julie Gayet in a secretive tryst at an apartment in Paris. Friends of Ms Trierweiler have told the French press that she is making the trip a “gesture of defiance”. 
After arriving on a scooter wearing a helmet, the man appearing to be the President disappeared inside and his bodyguard was pictured in the morning “delivering croissants”. President Hollande is the second French head of state in succession to suffer a conjugal break-up whilst in office. His predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, was divorcced by his second wife Cecilia five months after he became President in October 2007.
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. The website of the newspaper Le Parisien – which has accurately chronicled Ms Trierweiler’s moods and movements since the scandal broke – said that President Hollande had informed Ms Trierweiler of his decision over a lunch last Thursday. “She accepts his decision but she is allowing him to take sole responsibility,” a friend of the soon-to-be ex-First Lady told the newspaper.
A press conference to unveil the economic plans was overshadowed by questions over Mr Hollande's private life, as was a trip to Rome to meet the pope on Friday. President Hollande will make the trip to the United States alone . He is also due to visit Turkey on Monday and to fly to Britain for the annual Franco-British summit with David Cameron at the end of next week.
Opinion polls rank the 59-year-old as the most unpopular President in modern France. Elysee Palace sources have indicated in recent days that he has no intention at this stage of making the actress Julie Gayet his official partner and First Lady. He plans, the sources say, to live in the Elysee alone.
He has four children from a previous relationship with Segolene Royal, a senior member of his Socialist Party and a 2007 presidential candidate. It is understood that Ms Trierweiler left the presidential retreat at Versailles, La Lanterne, this afternoon and returned to the flat in the 15th arrondissement of Paris where she and Mr Hollande lived until last summer.  She moved to the mansion in Versaille last weekend after eight days in hospital suffering from an “acute case of the blues” following the exposure of Mr Hollande’s affair.
She announced their separation just after she lost the 2007 election to Nicolas Sarkozy.
Ms Trierweiler, an arts columnist for weekly magazine Paris Match, is not married to the President but assumed the role of First Lady at official functions following his election in May 2012.
Additional reporting by Reuters