French president's private staff targeted amid questions about tabloid photos with actress

French President Francois Hollande visits the French Pasteur institute laboratory at Donka hospital in Conakry, Guinea, Friday Nov. 28, 2014. Hollande is visiting the Ebola stricken country during a seven-hour stop on his way to Dakar, Senegal. (AP Photo/Alain Jocard, Pool) (The Associated Press)

FILE - This Oct. 22, 2011 file photo shows then French Socialist Party candidate for the 2012 presidential elections Francois Hollande, at a nomination ceremony, in Paris, with French actress Julie Gayet in background, top right. The French presidency confirmed Monday, Dec.1 2014 the transfer of five staff members previously assigned to Hollande’s “private service”, after reports by French media that photos of Hollande with Gayet inside the Elysee palace were taken from within the presidential private apartments. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File) (The Associated Press)

PARIS – Five members of the French president's private staff are being transferred amid questions over who took recent photos in a gossip magazine purporting to show Hollande with a French actress inside the Elysee Palace.

The French presidency on Monday confirmed the five are being sent to different jobs away from Hollande's "private service."

The photos of Hollande appearing with actress Julie Gayet were published last month by Voici. French media reported that they were taken from within the presidential private apartments.

The president and former partner Valerie Trierweiler broke up in January amid reports Hollande was having an affair with Gayet. Hollande has never denied it, but hasn't appeared publicly with Gayet.

The affair has raised concerns about presidential security and public figures' private lives in France.