Reinventing the Role of First Lady in France

When Francois Hollande was elected as France’s new President on May 6, the world turned its attention to him, and to France’s new first lady, Valérie Trierweiler.

Hollande’s election has brought a number of firsts for France. For one thing, she and Hollande, who’ve been together publicly since 2007, are not married. And Trierweiler, who’s a journalist, says she has her own career, and plans to continue working.

Although she’s covered politics for a long time, her bosses at the weekly magazine Paris Match say Trierweiler will now cover arts and culture instead of politics in order to avoid any conflicts of interest.

Yesterday, Trierweiler published her first article since Hollande became president. It was a review of a book about Eleanor Roosevelt, who herself wrote a column about her day-to-day life when she was first lady of the United States.

Marco Werman talks with New York Times correspondent Elaine Sciolino about France’s new first lady. Sciolino is based in Paris, and is the author of “La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life.”