Valerie Trierweiler has accused François Hollande of mocking the poor, despite his supposed Socialist roots.

The former French First Lady made the claims in her new book, Thank You For The Moment.

"He, the man of the Left, calls them the toothless ones,"wrote Trierweiler. "He’s very proud of his humour. He stood for election as a man who does not like the rich. In reality, the President does not like the poor."

She recalled a Christmas that the two spent with her working class family, the Massonneaus, who she claims are “so typical of his electors”.

"They’re not very nice, the Massonneau family," she remembers Hollande saying.

The French journalist has already released extracts from the book in Paris Match, in which she revealed that she tried to take a drugs overdose after she discovered news of the President’s alleged affair with actress Julie Gayet.

The incident was denied by the Elysée Palace when the allegations first emerged in January 2013.

"The news about [Hollande’s affair with] Julie Gayet was top of the news that morning," she wrote. "I cracked. I couldn’t listen to it any more. I ran into the bathroom and grabbed the little plastic bag of sleeping pills."

"François followed me. He tried to rip the bag out of my hand. I ran into the bedroom. He got hold of the bag and it ripped. Pills fell all over the bed and the floor. I got hold of some of them and swallowed as many as I could."

"I wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to live through the hours (of humiliation) that were coming. I knew that a storm was going to break over my head and I didn’t have the strength to go through it. I wanted to run from it. I lost consciousness."

Trierweiler was taken to hospital to rest for a week following the shock of her partner’s alleged infidelity.