I never thought I’d agree with Marine Le Pen on anything. However, her call for the French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand’s resignation did strike me as being not such a bad idea. The far-right National Front of which Le Pen is vice president, has launched an anti-Mitterrand demonstration in Paris. The media is in a frenzy regarding his 2005 novel The Bad Life where he details his sexcapades with male prostitutes in Thailand.

In response to his critics, the 62 year-old appeared on French news channel TF1 this week and denied that he paid boys for sex, and said that the participants were actually adults. "I condemn sexual tourism, which is a disgrace. I condemn pedophilia, which I have never in any way participated in," Mitterrand, said.

My question is then why did he state in his autobiography that "I got into the habit of paying for boys...All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excite me enormously." Slave market? Excitement? And did he say “boys”? Surely he knows the difference between boys and men. Now he’s claiming that he only slept with men who were 40 years of age. Hmmmmm. If you read an excerpt from the book, especially pages 293-307, which were published by Le Monde, Mitterrand’s half-impassioned defense strategy doesn’t sound credible. In one passage, he describes in way too much detail his sexual encounter with a "boy" he said was called Bird.

"My boy didn't say a word; he stood before me, immobile, his eyes still straight ahead and a half-smile on his lips. I wanted him so badly I was trembling," he wrote.

WTH?
Is it me, or...?

Whether innocent or not of being a sexual deviant as Le Pen has called him, Mitterrand had to have known what type of scrutiny this book would invite, sooner or later, in just mentioning two words together: Thailand and boys. When the book was published he was not a government figure, but now that he is, shouldn’t there be some type of "investigation"? A follow-up? A look inside Mitterrand’s cave? I mean good grief. Isn't it in everyone’s best interest to know who these government people really are, or at least, try to know who they are and what they really represent?

For the moment it looks like French President Sarkozy is standing by his man 100% and I have to ask the question: why? I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this story and perhaps Sarkozy will indeed have something more to say about it. Let’s hope so.

In the meantime, I think I understand now why Mitterrand came out in defense of Roman Polanski so quickly. What’s that saying, something about birds of a feather?

Priscilla Lalisse moved to Paris from New York City in 1999. In addition to being the Editor and Founder of Prissy Mag, she is the author of the novel STOCKALE. For her complete bio, please click here .

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