Segolene Royal reignites 'War of the Roses' with French First Lady by blaming her for her 2007 presidential election defeat

• Miss Royal, 58, claimed Valerie Trierweiler 'undermined her career'
• Valerie Trierweiler sparked outrage with tweet against Segolene Royal
• Royal lived with Francois Hollande for 30 years, had four children with him
• Trierweiler says she 'now regrets' sending the message
  

By Chris Parsons

PUBLISHED: 02:41 EST, 22 June 2012 | UPDATED: 03:12 EST, 22 June 2012

Segolene Royal reignited her row with the French First Lady last night when she blamed Valerie Trierweiler for her presidential election defeat to Nicolas Sarkozy.

The pair had becomed embroiled in a political spat last week when it emerged that Miss Trierweiler had tweeted support for a politician standing against Miss Royal, 58, in parliamentary elections.

A presidential aide said Miss Trierweiler, 47 – nicknamed the Rottweiler – had since been told to ‘stay in the shadows’ because president Francois Hollande was ‘furious’ at her intervention.

Backtrack: France's controversial new first lady Valerie Trierweiler (left) now 'regrets' humiliating the mother of the President's four children Segolene Royal (right)

But the row dubbed the 'the war of the roses' erupted again last night when Miss Royal, who said she was 'wounded' by the 'violent blow', claimed Miss Trierweiler had been undermining her career for years since starting a relationship with her ex-partner.

Miss Segolene, the mother of President Hollande's four children, had already accused senior Socialist politicians of not being supportive enough in her 2007 campaign.

But she went a step further in an interview with French weekly Le Point yesteryday, claiming France's first lady had kept Mr Hollande away from her during the campaign.

She said: 'I realise that in 2007 (Mr Hollande's affair with Trierweiler) can't have helped matters. I now understand why François didn't help me.

'In 2007, I said to myself: 'It will pass, it'll work itself out.' So I took it on the chin.'

Miss Royal is said to have told friends that Miss Trierweiler is a 'traitor' who her treated her disgracefully.

Ms Trierweiler took to Twitter to announce her support for socialist Olivier Falorni

Miss Royal said it was unfair that Miss Trierweiler had been allowed to carry on writing about Mr Hollande in her 'Paris Match' arts column.

Miss Royal told Le Point: 'In an Anglo-Saxon country, she would have been fired the same day. But Paris Match was not unhappy to see me weakened, so they let (the relationship) go on deliberately, just like all those others who knew ...(Paris Match owner) Lagardère, Sarkozy.'

Her outburst finished when she claimed that 'I'm the one whose family has been broken, I'm, the one who should bear a grudge.'

France's first lady said last night she regretted humiliating the mother of the president’s four children.

Mr Hollande, who lived with Miss Royal for 30 years, wanted to make her the speaker of the National Assembly but backed down when she lost the election.

Telling off: Following Valerie Trierweiler's (pictured right) Twitter comments, Prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said 'everyone should know their place'

A friend of Miss Trierweiler said she admitted: ‘I made a mistake.’ The friend added: ‘She did not calculate the consequences.’

Ms Trierweiler, who has been divorced twice, has three sons of her own and said that the only reason she had not travelled to Mexico with Hollande for the G8 meeting was because they have exams this week.

Intriguingly, Ms Trierweiler's personal biography has disappeared from the Elysee Palace website, but another aide insisted that it was 'being edited' and would return.

But the same aide confirmed that Ms Trierweiler was being encouraged to 'remain in the shadows'  because Ms Hollande was 'furious' at the way she has behaved so far.

Glamour: Hollande initially painted himself as an antidote to the flash previous President Nicolas Sarkozy, who married model Carla Bruni

Referring to the tweet, he said 'clearly this cannot happen again'.

Despite the continuing saga which has reduced the Elysee to a soap opera, journalist Ms Trierweiler's arts column is set to appear in Paris Match magazine this week.

And she has insisted she will not give up her Twitter account.

Mr Hollande has now refused to give Ms Royal a job because she lost the La Rochelle seat in western France so heavily.

But, despite consistent defeats since being rejected for the presidency in 2007, Ms Royal insists that she can revive her political career.