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François Hollande is a cold, cynical cheat and a Socialist who “doesn’t like the poor,” according to a devastating memoir by a vengeful Valérie Trierweiler, the French president’s spurned ex-girlfriend.

Depicted as icy, obsessively ambitious and out of his depth, Mr. Hollande is picked apart in Thank You For This Moment, published Thursday, a “kiss-and-tell” account of their nine-year relationship and her 18 months at the Elysée Palace.

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The president’s aides said he was kept totally in the dark about its release and was “appalled” at extracts leaked Wednesday, including one recounting a desperate fight to stop Ms. Trierweiler taking sleeping pills in the presidential bedroom after his affair with Julie Gayet, the actress, hit the headlines.

But perhaps the most damaging passage of the book, cited by Le Monde, is one in which Mr. Hollande appears to mock the poor.

“He presents himself as the man who doesn’t like the rich. In reality, the president doesn’t like the poor,” writes Ms. Trierweiler, who is from a gritty neighbourhood in Angers, west of Paris. Her father is an invalid and her mother worked as cashier at an ice rink.