PARIS: So does France’s unmarried president now have both a First Lady and a First Mistress?

Francois Hollande came under mounting pressure on Monday to clear up the confusion created by the latest developments in his complicated love life.

The Socialist leader had been hoping to ride out the storm created by last week’s revelation of an alleged affair with Julie Gayet, a blonde actress 18 years his junior.

But any hope of that was shattered on Sunday when it emerged that Hollande’s companion of several years and de facto First Lady, Valerie Trierweiler, had been hospitalized with stress.

Symptoms variously described in the media as low blood pressure, exhaustion and a “severe case of the blues” developed within hours of glossy magazine Closer publishing details of 59-year-old Hollande’s alleged secret trysts with Gayet, 41, in a borrowed apartment close to his official residence, the Elysee Palace.

Trierweiler, who lives with Hollande at the Elysee, was expected to leave hospital later on Monday, and friends of the president advised him to move quickly to put an end to the speculation over their future as a couple.

“He has to clarify the situation,” said Thierry Mandon, the spokesman for the Socialist Party’s parliamentary group.

“He really must clear up his personal situation so that we can address the serious issues we face. He has to do it once, firmly and decisively, and then we don’t talk about it any more.”

The traditional reticence in France’s media and political class over what is seen as prying into the private lives of public figures ensured that reaction to Closer’s scoop was initially subdued.

Despite concerns that Hollande had apparently been taking risks with his own security with clandestine visits to the flat on a chauffeur-driven scooter, it looked like he would be allowed to resolve his personal dilemma behind closed doors.

But the fact that Trierweiler is effectively a public figure with an entourage funded by the taxpayer has made her future a legitimate news story.

“What an affair!” was how the latest twists in the saga were summed up in a front-page headline in Le Parisien.

Another daily, Liberation, said that because of Trierweiler’s hospitalization the affair could no longer be brushed off as a purely private matter.