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The French Really Are Different

The French culture minister Frederic Mitterand, who's been an outspoken defender of Roman Polanski, is now under fire himself for some revelations he made in his 2005 memoir. From the BBC:

In his 2005 book The Bad Life, he wrote: "I got into the habit of paying for boys," saying his attraction to young male prostitutes was not dimmed despite knowing "the sordid details of this traffic".

"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."

Mr Mitterrand, 62, has denied being a paedophile, saying the term "boys" was used loosely.

The account of cruising for prostitutes in Thailand attracted little attention when it was published in 2005, when Mr Mitterrand was a TV personality.

If only he'd kept his mouth shut about Polanski. . . .