PARIS - Two-thirds of French people do not want Culture Minister
Frederic Mitterrand to resign for having written about paying young
male prostitutes for sex in Thailand, an opinion poll showed
Monday.
Mitterrand has rejected calls for his resignation, sparked by
revelations in his 2005 autobiography, "The Bad Life," and said the
male prostitutes were consenting adults.
The French government has also come out in support of
Mitterrand, who has threatened legal action to protect his
reputation.
The controversy surfaced after Mitterrand defended film-maker
Roman Polanski, who faces extradition from Switzerland to the
United States for having had sex with a 13-year-old girl in
1977.
Both the far-right National Front party and main Socialist
opposition party said he should step down.
However, 67 percent of French people do not want Mitterrand to
resign, against 20 percent who think he should, according to the
survey of 1,005 people carried out by pollster BVA on October
9-10.
Mitterrand has called his experiences in Thailand, described in
the book that mixes autobiography and more dreamlike reflection, as
"a mistake, certainly, a crime, no."
"I got into the habit of paying for boys," Mitterrand wrote.
"All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market
excited me enormously ... the abundance of very attractive and
immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire."
Mitterrand, the nephew of former Socialist President Francois
Mitterrand, shot to the top of popularity polls after he was
drafted into Sarkozy's centre-right cabinet in June.