THE SUNDAY TIMES: The influence of France’s first lady has halted the sacking of a minister – but for how long
The reluctance of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, to sack a gay minister with a past as a “sex tourist” in Thailand will certainly please Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, his wife.
She had suggested appointing Frédéric Mitterrand, a friend, as culture minister and the government’s support for him, despite his confession to having paid boys for sex, is partly a sign of Sarkozy’s eagerness not to offend his first lady.
“She has great power and influence,” said Joëlle Garriaud-Maylam, a senator in Sarkozy’s centre-right party, referring to the Italian-born singer and former model. “It’s obvious she is defending Mitterrand. But it puts the president in a difficult situation. He is offending many of his supporters.”
L’affaire Mitterrand began when the nephew of the last Socialist president flew to the defence of Roman Polanski, the Polish film director, over child sex charges, only to face such accusations himself in connection with a memoir published in 2005.
Yesterday it emerged that he had also offered to help rehabilitate two teenage brothers convicted earlier this year of raping a 16-year-old girl on the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion. One was the son of his make-up artist when he worked as a television presenter. He may bitterly regret having written “I got into the habit of paying for boys” in his book, The Bad Life. >>> Matthew Campbell in Paris | Sunday, October 11, 2009
