News and Society

Valérie Trierweiler said media coverage about her tweet had been disproportionate. Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

Valérie Trierweiler, the partner of the French president, François Hollande, has issued her first public apology for the controversial tweet that caused a scandal in June, just as a poll showed the majority of French people have a negative view of her.

After three and a half months of no interviews and few public comments, Trierweiler appeared to be back on a media offensive to correct her poor image, with a carefully worded interview with the biggest-selling regional paper, Ouest France. She gave her first public mea culpa for the tweet that laid bare her animosity to Ségolène Royal, Hollande's ex-partner and the mother of his four children, and which forced the president's complex love life on to the front pages.

In the tweet, which shocked the political class and embarrassed Hollande shortly after his election, she had expressed support for a dissident Socialist running for election against Royal.

"It was a mistake, and I regret it," she told Ouest France. "I was clumsy because it was badly interpreted. I hadn't yet realised that I was no longer a simple citizen. It won't happen again." She added that she thought the media treatment of the tweet had been "disproportionate".

A poll to be released by the magazine VSD on Thursday found 67% of French people had a bad view of Trierweiler, who despite recent appearances in New York and at Paris fashion week has struggled to escape references to the tweet, which sparked a series of books this autumn about her and Hollande's private life.

Trierweiler also told Ouest France that "after a period of reflection" she had abandoned the idea of hosting a series of TV documentaries for the channel D8, where she used to front politics and culture shows.

She said she had thought about making one or two documentaries a year about "big causes" such as "the education of young girls in the world" or "demographic problems".

She described the dropped project as having a "humanitarian vocation" but added: "I understand that for some, being the president's partner and working for a TV station can prompt questions or confusion, so I decided not to do it."

The interview highlights the continuing difficulty for Trierweiler, a former political journalist, of navigating her status as the French first lady, when the political role does not officially exist.

After months of stressing her independence as a journalist and her desire to be the first presidential partner to maintain a salaried job, for Paris Match magazine, the Twitter scandal complicated the debate by showing her firmly backing a politician during a parliamentary election campaign. Media commentators questioned how she could stay a journalist while also having an office and staff at the Elysée presidential palace.

However, she told Ouest France she would continue her literary columns for Paris Match, "which have nothing to with politics". She said she had to support her three teenage children, and could not do so without a salary. "France has the record for professionally active women: 85%. And I'm simply one of them," she said. She added that she would keep her Elysée office, but said that when writing articles she worked from the Paris flat she shared with Hollande, where the couple still live.

Aurelie Filippetti, the Socialist culture minister, told French radio that as a feminist she deplored the difficulty Trierweiler was facing in continuing her profession while being the president's partner.

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