French Polanski backer in controversy of his own -- latimes.com
French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand defended the film director detained over old charges of sex with a minor. Mitterrand is now under fire for his account of sex with male Thai prostitutes.
By Devorah Lauter
2:16 PM PDT, October 8, 2009
Reporting from Paris
France's minister of culture, whose forceful defense of film director Roman Polanski brought scrutiny to his own life, denied in a television interview Thursday that he had slept with underage boys and said a 2005 book about his experiences should not be taken as a literal memoir.
Cocking his head to the side and occasionally glancing at his folded hands on the table, Frederic Mitterrand sought to explain passages he wrote in "The Bad Life" about having sex with young male prostitutes in Thailand.
"Yes, I had [sexual] relations with young men, but one cannot confuse pedophilia with homosexuality," the 62-year-old politician said, insisting that he had only had sex with adults.
"It is neither a novel, nor my memoirs. I preferred to leave things vague," he said. "Nothing is true, nothing is false," he added. "It was a way to tell a life story that resembles mine a lot."
The book, which was widely perceived as autobiographical, raised some questions when it was published but did not cause a scandal and sold well. It resurfaced after Mitterrand made a much criticized and emotional appeal in support of Polanski following the Polish American film director's arrest Sept. 26.
Polanski was jailed in Switzerland on a warrant stemming from his guilty plea three decades ago to charges of having illegal sex with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles. He fled the U.S. in 1978 before sentencing and had lived in Paris ever since.
Polanski remains in custody while he awaits a decision on a U.S. extradition request.
Mitterrand, nephew of the late French President Francois Mitterrand, has been under fire since his defense of the Oscar-winning director. The far-right National Front party has called for his resignation, and party member Marine Le Pen read excerpts of his book on French television Monday.
Socialist Party spokesman Benoit Hamon said he was "violently shocked" by the book and that "the question is to know whether Mr. Frederic Mitterrand should resign or not."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has not spoken out on Polanski's arrest, nor has he explicitly come to the defense of Mitterrand, who told French reporters that he was the victim of "gutter" attacks from opposing politicians.
During his appearance on French television network TF1, Mitterrand did not mince words when he responded to accusations this week that his book was a true story describing his sexual experiences with young, or underage, prostitutes in a Bangkok brothel.
"I never hurt anyone," he said.
"The Polanski affair," he later added, "has become the Mitterrand affair."
French Roman Polanski backer in controversy of his own
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