PARIS - On the day after François Hollande's election last month, Le Monde asked his companion Valérie Trierweiler how she saw her role. "Being a first lady is a second role, and I have to make sure it stays that way," she answered. "My word shouldn't replace the president's, or cause problems for him."

And then she added: "I will be very careful about my tweets, my voice has a new impact."

Trierweiler, a longtime political journalist active on social media, thought about closing her account. But now, just one month later, she has posted a tweet wishing "courage" to the opponent of a legislative candidate Hollande had just publicly supported -- who just happens to be Ségolène Royal, the President's former longtime companion and mother of his four children.

Courage à Olivier Falorni qui n'a pas démérité, qui se bat aux côtés des rochelais depuis tant d'années dans un engagement désintéressé.

— Valerie Trierweiler (@valtrier) June 12, 2012

Maybe that is the essence of Valérie Trierweiler: an anthology of assertions as peremptory as they are contradictory; acts that often clash with declared principles. "Paradox makes a woman," says a source close to the presidential couple.

Two clashing images

She is still finding herself and she doesn't shy away from it. On the French public radio station France Inter on June 7, she said that she found the "First Lady" label "quaint," and that she wanted to "renew" it. Apparently the French people she's met had already made suggestions: "France's trump of hearts' and "first journalist" were two.

That the two images clash doesn't seem to shock her: the first hails back to the overused clichés of a first lady fit only to show her pretty face; the second refers to the modern, active woman, protective of her independence, by no means prepared to interrupt a successful career or to take a back seat to her companion.

Until now, she had tried to iron out the contradictions. She decided to continue working as a journalist, but gave up the political beat. In October 2011 she had already stopped hosting the "2012: Campaign Portraits' show on Direct 8 cable televsion. After Hollande's election, she had it known that she would continue working for the Paris Match weekly, but that she wouldn't deal with "French news," restricting herself to cultural reports.

Parallel to this, she explained that she would keep in line with the traditional role of the first lady, "volunteer work with the French people," like Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who continued her singing career while heading a foundation for education and culture.

When a journalist lectures journalists

But it has quickly become clear how hard it would be to juggle all of these roles. On June 4, infuriated by a behind-the-scenes piece about the official presidential photograph on Le Monde's website, she called the editorial staff asking that they remove two pictures that showed her taking part in the shooting in the Elysée gardens. Just before the elections, she had sent a tweet asking her "colleagues' not to "camp in front of the residence" she shared with Hollande in Paris.

A journalist lecturing journalists in the name of the first lady's peace of mind, this was unprecedented. But then on Tuesday, at exactly 11:56 a.m., Trierweiler took it to a whole new level, with a tweet that has landed with a thud in the middle of tightly contested legislative campaign. The first lady has seemingly undermined Hollande, twice over, endorsing the Socialist insurgent candidate running against the anointed Royal, with whom the president had reestablished a solid political alliance after the couple's separation five years ago. What role was Trierweiler in when she sent that tweet?

"I have never seen a journalist calling to vote for a Socialist dissident," said a flummoxed party leader.

For her first column in Paris Match since she acquired an office and advisors at the Elysée, Trierweiler chose to review Claude-Catherine Kiejman's biography of Eleanor Rossevelt. It was seen as a mere hint. One forgets that the book's subtitle was: "First Lady and Rebel."

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