“I got married very young, maybe that’s why I felt the need to be happy at the age of 40.” Alain Juppe admits his betrayals.

Alain Juppe tells everything in his memoirs published on September 14. French history (ed. Tallandier). He discusses not only his career in politics, his exile in Quebec, his failure in the right-wing primaries in 2016, but also his loves. In particular, the former prime minister tells about his “romantic” meeting with Christine in the first grade. Then, the ups and downs their relationship went through. Alain Juppe does not hide that he cheated at one point. “The demon of noon had seized me in my forties,” he writes on page 106. “I have always been sensitive to the beauty of women.” Politics multiplies temptations. So I had adventures, most of them short lived. And so, after more than twenty years of living together, with so many moments of happiness and sharing, Christine and I gradually drifted apart, without drama or violence.”

Anne-Aymon and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in the video. politics, ambition and betrayals

“I felt the need to be happy”

Asked about this appearance in France Inter, the former mayor of Bordeaux defends himself. “I won’t say any more!” You notice that my confidence does not go very far,” he told the journalists of “La Matinale” Lea Salame and Nicola Demoran. Before adding, however. “I am not a cold monster. I love women. I love female beauty. I fully agree”. As an attempt to justify his betrayal, the 78-year-old politician then emphasized. “I have had great loves in my life. I got married very young, which is probably why I felt the need to fool around here and there in my 40s. Today I live a life, well, I’m not going to talk about my current life, very happy.”

Love at first sight… at the press conference

In his memoirs, Alain Juppe also talks about his love at first sight for journalist Isabel Bodin, who would become his second wife. “I still haven’t explained the conditions I encountered during my press meetings, which will change my life,” he wrote. “I remain convinced that the young and beautiful journalist who caught my eye was wearing a bright green skirt. Isabelle, the journalist in question, adamantly insists even today that this vision is a figment of my imagination and that she has never worn a green skirt. I persist and sign. Never mind. “I fell in love,” as my Quebecois friends say. It was youth, grace, seduction beneath apparent shyness that invaded my life. My ties to Christine had been waning for several years. I felt available. So I gave in to my love at first sight… which was not reciprocated. But I told myself that the fortress was not impregnable, and I undertook to besiege it. It took…”

Determinedly in love with Isabelle Bodin, Alain Juppe will leave his first wife, with whom he is close today. “The day I told him about the divorce in 1992, it hurt. My heart still sinks when I see him again, behind the window of the apartment where he settled in the village of Saint-Paul, watching me as I left him, crossing the small deserted square that gave access to to his building. he remembers. . “We are not putting an end to twenty-seven years of life together, which was a beautiful story, without pain.”