France's former first lady has said she and the president grew apart recently but she was caught totally by surprise by his affair with an actress.

Valerie Trierweiler gave interviews to two French publications describing for the first time what led to her break-up from Francois Hollande last weekend.

Ms Trierweiler told the weekly Paris-Match, where she worked for a long time as a journalist, that she did not believe rumours about the affair until a gossip magazine report earlier this month.

"When I found out, it was like I had fallen from a skyscraper," she said.

She told the weekly Le Parisien Magazine that she and the president exchanged text messages while she was in India this week because he was worried about her health.