September 3, 2013 file photo showing French President Francois Hollande and his partner Valerie Trierweiler at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris.
Concern and confusion over the health of France's First Lady Valerie Trierweiler mounted on Friday as her employer, Paris Match, reported that her family were "worried" for her and that her teenage son had been unable to visit her in hospital.
The weekly magazine, for whom Trierweiler currently writes a literary column, made the statement in a cryptic post on its website a day after she was visited in her Paris clinic by Hollande for the first time since her admission last Friday.
Trierweiler, who had been described as suffering from nervous exhaustion and low blood pressure, had been planning to discharge herself from the hospital on Friday and had intended to go to a presidential residence in Versailles, a historic city outside Paris, to continue her recuperation, France's best-known magazine said.
"The family of our colleague are worried," it added. "On Friday afternoon, for the first time since she was hospitalised, her youngest son, who is 16, was not able to visit his mother at the Pitie-Salpetriere (hospital).
"In contrast to previous days, Valerie Trierweiler is no longer answering her telephone. Our information is that she had taken the decision to leave the hospital today. She had wanted to go to the official residence La Lanterne, in Versailles, to continue her convalescence."
Paris Match did not immediately respond to AFP's requests for clarification of their statement and aides to Trierweiler could not be immediately contacted.
Le Point, a highly-respected, high-brow news magazine, reported on Friday that Trierweiler admitted herself to hospital after "taking one pill too many" in despair but ruled out a serious suicide attempt.
Hollande meanwhile was reported by Closer magazine to have possibly started his affair with actress Julie Gayet "two years ago" although it was vague about the exact timing.
In its latest revelations about a saga that has made headlines around the world, Closer magazine said Hollande had been introduced to the actress and Socialist activist during campaigning for the 2012 vote, fell for her immediately.
Hollande's failure to visit Trierweiler until Thursday evening had fuelled speculation that he has decided to end the relationship with Trierweiler, for whom he left Segolene Royal, the mother of his four children, in 2005.
Hollande has said he will clarify the position of France's de facto First Lady before a trip to Washington next month but has refused any other comment on the scandal gripping France.
Closer, which is being sued by Gayet for alleged breach of privacy, reported last week that she had been having secret trysts with the president and published photographs of the pair arriving separately at a borrowed flat near his official residence, the Elysee Palace.
'Secret mini-breaks'In its follow-up story, Closer depicted Hollande's romance with Gayet as much more than a brief fling, although it offered little in the way of concrete evidence and, unlike last week's scoop, no pictures to back up its account.
The magazine said the couple had also regularly met at another Paris apartment and at Gayet's loft in eastern Paris.
The pair reportedly took a break from seeing each other in May of last year after Trierweiler confronted Hollande over rumours he was seeing the actress.
But by July, the romance had reportedly resumed with the president entertaining the actress in Tulle, in his former parliamentary seat in the Correze region of central France, while Trierweiler was holidaying in Greece.
Another secret mini-break allegedly followed in September at Hollande's holiday home at Mougins on the French Riviera.
Closer said on Thursday that Gayet was seeking damages of 50,000 euros on the grounds that the magazine's first report on the affair represented an illegal breach of her privacy. A trial date has been set for March 6.
Hollande has not denied the magazine's report and has ruled out any legal action on his own behalf.
Closer's revelations have raised questions about whether Hollande's nocturnal activities endangered his security, about his judgement and about whether he could have been distracted from doing his job.
Those issues have been given scant consideration in the mainstream media in France, which is traditionally reticent about prying into the private lives of public figures.
The affairs of recent presidents including Jacques Chirac and Valery Giscard d'Estaing were all covered up and Francois Mitterrand was elected twice without voters knowing he had a secret mistress and daughter.
The media scene in France however is being transformed by the internet and the success of the gossip-based publications like Closer, which argue the public has a right to know what their leaders are up to behind closed doors.