France’s former first lady en route to India after split

A day after parting ways with President Francois Hollande, France’s former first lady discreetly left Paris for India on Sunday to support a nonprofit organization, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported.

Valerie Trierweiler boarded an Air France flight to Mumbai with an entourage that included her friend actress Charlotte Valandrey, BFMTV reported from the French capital’s Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Valandrey told BFMTV that Trierweiler “was very happy to leave for that mission to save children in India. … She is a strong woman with a heart … someone who can be counted on and who is engaged in a humanitarian cause.”

While in India, her schedule will include attending a charity gala dinner, Action Against Hunger said on its website.

It will be her first public appearance since a media storm over Hollande’s alleged affair with an actress erupted this month.

French president says it’s over

Goodbye message

Hollande declared his relationship with Trierweiler over on Saturday.

“I wish to make it known that I have ended my shared life (partnership) with Valerie Trierweiler,” Hollande told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Hollande’s private life has been the subject of global headlines since the French magazine Closer claimed this month he’d been having an affair with actress Julie Gayet for two years.

Speculation about the split swirled Saturday after a French national weekly reported Hollande was expected to announce his separation from Trierweiler later in the day.

But the French presidency initially denied the report that an announcement would be made. “It is a rumor that circulated on the Internet today. There is absolutely no confirmation of the publication of a statement today,” the palace press officer told CNN.

Hollande meets with Pope Francis amid scandal

U.S. trip planned for February

Hollande has not confirmed or denied the alleged affair but did threaten legal action. At his first news conference of the year, Hollande said he and Trierweiler were going through “painful moments.”

The allegations had left Trierweiler’s position in some doubt ahead of a planned trip to Washington in February.

Last weekend, Trierweiler left the hospital where she had spent a week being treated for stress and fatigue, Paris Match reported. The magazine also said she would recover for “several days” in an official residence in Versailles.

Hollande, 59, has seen his personal approval ratings plummet since his election, although this has been attributed to dissatisfaction with his leadership rather than disapproval of his private life.

A recent survey by French pollster Ifop with the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche found that more than 80% of respondents had not changed their opinion of the President based on the allegations of an affair.

Hollande has four children from a previous relationship with Segolene Royal, a senior member of his Socialist Party and a 2007 presidential candidate. Royal announced their separation just after she lost the 2007 election to Nicolas Sarkozy.

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Editors’ Note: This article has been edited to remove plagiarized content after CNN discovered multiple instances of plagiarism by Marie-Louise Gumuchian, a former CNN news editor.

CNN’s Pierre Meilhan contributed to this report