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Frederic Mitterrand was praised for his honesty when his book was first published in 2005
Frederic Mitterrand
Two-thirds of French back minister despite sex with 'boys'
The French culture minister, Frederic Mitterrand, who last week faced calls for his resignation over his past accounts of paying for gay sex with "boys" in Bangkok, has been backed by the French public in an opinion poll.
Two-thirds (67%) of the 1,005 people surveyed by pollster BVA said that they did not want him to resign, against 20% who thought he should. Mitterrand has rejected calls for his resignation and the French government has been supportive of him, although President Sarkozy has not commented on the controversy.
The openly gay nephew of the late President Mitterrand went to the top of popularity polls when he was appointed to Sarkozy's centre-right cabinet in June, reportedly at the urging of the president's wife, Carla Bruni, who was accused of "meddling" in politics and using her "marital sway" over her husband.
The content of Mitterrand's bestselling autobiography, The Bad Life, published in 2005, only became a political issue after he vigorously defended Roman Polanski, who faces extradition from Switzerland to the US for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
Mitterrand, 62, a former TV presenter, writer and gay rights activist, wrote of his attraction to young male prostitutes when travelling around Thailand, confessing: "I got into the habit of paying for boys...The profusion of young, very attractive and immediately available boys put me in a state of desire that I no longer needed to restrain or hide."
Mitterrand was the first major political figure to publicly support the film director, but his stance was controversial and the French government eventually distanced itself. It was then exploited by Sarkozy's opponents in Jean-Marie Le Pen's extreme right Front National and in the main opposition Socialist party, with calls for the culture minister's resignation. Socialist Arnoud Montebourg said: "It is impossible that a minister representing France can encourage violation of his own international commitments to fight sexual tourism."
Mitterrand was praised for his honesty when the critically acclaimed book was first published. He had denied that the prostitutes were under age, saying on France3 television that homosexuals call all men "boys" and that accusations that he used "little boys" were "part of the general puritanism which surrounds us nowadays and which always tries to blacken the picture."
"It was an error yes, but not a crime, not even a serious mistake. Let anyone who has not committed this kind of mistake cast the first stone - among all the people watching this tonight, who among them has not done something like this at least once?"
