Jeannette Bougrab, who moved France with her tearful tribute to her lover Stéphane Charbonnier, the murdered editor of Charlie Hebdo known as Charb, is to stay away from his funeral after a row with his family.
Her decision follows remarks by Charb's brother, who denied the couple were in a relationship and demanded she stop speaking about him in the media.
Although Miss Bougrab, 41, a former junior minister in Nicolas Sarkozy's government, insisted she and Charb had been lovers for three years, Laurent Charbonnier made a statement on behalf of his brother's relatives.
The family, he said, "formally denies any committed relationship between Charb and Jeanette Bougrab".
Miss Bougrab replied: "We didn't do a press release to announce our relationship but we weren't hiding it. He had met my mother, my daughter called him dad." She said that after commiserating with her, the family had suddenly turned its back on her.
"But now I've agreed to remove myself and I will not go to his funeral. I do not have the strength to fight for that. I am bruised and defeated."
Commenting on her decision, she said: "The family have deprived me of a last reunion with my love. By doing that they've killed him a second time."
Several friends of the couple have since backed her claims of a relationship.
Miss Bougrab's widely publicised grief came to symbolise France's mourning for the deaths of 12 people at the office of the satirical magazine.
In a series of emotional television interviews she said she had known he would be killed and described how she had implored him to leave France.
"My companion is dead because he drew in a newspaper. He never had children because he knew he was going to die. He lived without fear but he knew he would die.
"He defended secularism. He was the fruit of this ideal of the republic that we've almost forgotten."
(The Telegraph)
