Giscard hints at affair with Diana
Ex-president pens novel in which a French head of state has a romantic liaison with ‘Patricia, Princess of Cardiff’
FORMER president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing has dropped a playful hint that he had a romantic liaison with Princess Diana.
The 83-year-old has written a novel called The Princess and the President which is due to be published at the end of the month and has been kept under wraps until now.
According to Le Figaro, the book’s central character, French president Jacques-Henri Lambertye, is closely modelled on Giscard, who governed France from 1974 to 1981.
Lambertye meets the “very pretty and media-friendly” Patricia, Princess of Cardiff – which Giscard helpfully reminds us is “a town in Wales” – at a state dinner in Buckingham Palace to coincide with the end of a G7 summit.
"I kissed her hand and she gave me a questioning look, her slate-grey eyes widening as she tilted her head gently forward," he writes.
Patricia is in an unhappy marriage with an unfaithful husband and the princess and the president go on to share moments of passion together in the Château de Rambouillet.
According to Le Figaro, Giscard's novel includes a wealth of detail about the French and British ruling classes and the palaces in which they meet – and hints on several occasions that there might be an element of truth in the story.
The book, in French, will be published on October 1 by Editions Fallois-Xo. The publisher is printing 100,000 copies in the hope that the Diana revelations will help it fly off the shelf.
