French president Francois Hollande reportedly had affair in mobster-linked hotel

Asked whether his security was compromised, Hollande said, "My security is assured everywhere, and at any moment. When I travel officially ... and when I travel on a private basis, I have protection that is less suffocating. But I am protected everywhere."

He left open the possibility of suing Closer for the publication of the photos.

Photographer Sebastian Valiela said he was surprised at the lack of security for Hollande, whose government has been repeatedly threatened by Al Qaeda.

"To go to the rendezvous with Julie Gayet, he was taking some risks," he told RTL. "As soon as he got into the apartment, his guards left."

Twenty years ago, Valiela, rocked France's political establishment with images that revealed the secret family of then-President Francois Mitterrand, showing the Socialist leader emerging from a restaurant with the daughter he had never acknowledged.

Hollande, who has four children from a previous relationship with a leading politician, was elected as a "Monsieur Normal" in a backlash against his flamboyant predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.

Dominique Moisi, a French political analyst, said Hollande -- who was already the most unpopular president in modern French history before the recent revelations -- had brought the scrutiny on himself.

"He wanted to impress the French with the fact that he was a normal man, that he was a man of dignity, simplicity, moral rigor," he said. "Suddenly the French are discovering that he is like others, but in a less glorious manner, even a ridiculous manner."