French first lady returns to work with India charity trip

France's first lady Valerie Trierweiler is returning to charity work with a trip to India, an anti-hunger group said, two weeks after she was hospitalized following a report that Francois Hollande had an affair with an actress.
   
Trierweiler, 48, spent a week in hospital to recover from shock and another week resting in a presidential residence near Versailles after the report was published.
   
Celebrity magazine Closer this month published what it said were images of Hollande making a nocturnal visit to French movie actress Julie Gayet's apartment in Paris.
   
The head of Action contre la Faim, Valerie Daher, said Trierweiler would go ahead with a long planned private trip to Mumbai on Monday to support the French charity against hunger.
   
"She's been through a difficult period and is very tired. She feels better, at least enough to make the trip, although we had to cut it short," Daher said on BFM TV.
   
Hollande, who has acknowledged the turbulence in his private life, has pledged to clarify Trierweiler's status before a trip to the United States scheduled for Feb. 9, but has steered clear of journalists' questions about the alleged affair.
   
News that Trierweiler, who has been Hollande's partner since 2006, will go to India emerged as the president of the traditionally Roman Catholic country was holding his first meeting with Pope Francis in Rome.


 
REUTERS