French First Lady Valérie Trierweiler on Wednesday won damages from a magazine for putting photographs of her in a bikini on its front cover, even though she works for a rival glossy that published the same pictures.

A Paris judge ordered celebrity weekly VSD to pay President François Hollande's partner 2,000 euros for breaching her privacy and image rights.

Miss Trierweiler, a journalist still on the payroll of Paris Match, had asked for 30,000 euros.

The photos had shown France's first couple relaxing on a beach close to the presidential retreat of Fort de Brégançon on the French Riviera last month. She reportedly told friends she didn't like the photos as they mad her look "fat".

French commentators described Miss Trierweiler's legal action as hypocritical given that she declined to attack her own employer, saying she felt "ill at ease" doing so. Her lawyer's argument was that Paris Match published the pictures inside the magazine, not on the front.

It retrained the media spotlight on the first lady, who has sought to keep a low profile after a slew of highly critical books detailing her 10-year alleged feud with Mr Hollande's ex-partner Ségolène Royal, the mother of his four children.

Laurent Greilsamer, former news editor of Le Monde, said of the first lady: "You have shown yourself to be unconventional, imperial, amorous, explosive, unpredictable. And clearly dangerous."

The court action was deemed curious given that she had also previously visited the beach to work out which spots were hidden from paparazzi camera lenses and where she and the president could be seen.

VSD's lawyer had argued that publishing photos of French presidential couples at Fort de Brégançon was a "harmless tradition" and that Mr Hollande's claim to being a "normal" president meant he should respect the tradition.

Mr Hollande's predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, and his wife Carla were snapped on the same beach in their swimwear but took no legal action.

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(Agencies)