From the NYT:  Mazarine Pingeot is the daughter of François Mitterrand and Anne Pingeot, his longtime mistress, and for much of her youth and nearly his entire 14-year presidency she was a state secret.

“When he was absent, he was the president,” said Ms. Pingeot (pronounced pan-JOH), who has her father’s intense dark eyes. “When he was home, he was for me.”

Mr. Mitterrand, who was known as the Sphinx, began his double life long before he was elected president, but the existence of his second family was revealed only near the end of his political career. Less than a year after leaving office in 1995, he died of cancer, an illness he also tried to keep secret. Anne and Mazarine Pingeot attended the state funeral along with Mr. Mitterrand’s wife, Danielle, and the Mitterrands’ two sons.  Continuez.