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.