Strange Timing & Motive In Polanski Arrest

[Jan Klimkowski]

This should shock. Instead, it's tediously unsurprizing....

French minister who demanded Roman Polanski be freed paid for sex with 'young boys' in Thailand
By Peter Allen
Last updated at 10:35 AM on 08th October 2009

The French government minister who led calls to free Roman Polanski was under pressure to resign today after it emerged he paid for sex with ‘young boys’.

Frederic Mitterand, who is openly gay and a close friend of First Lady Carla Bruni, had described the arrest of the film director for sleeping with a 13-year-old girl as ‘absolutely horrifying’.

But critics were today pointing to the Culture Minister's autobiography ‘The Bad Life’, in which he admits having been a sex tourist in Thailand.

Mitterand, nephew of the late Socialist president Francois Mitterand, wrote: ‘I got into the habit of paying for boys.

'All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excite me enormously. One could judge this abominable spectacle from a moral standpoint but it pleases me beyond the reasonable.’

Bizarrely, there was little fuss when the book first came out in 2005.

But when Mitterand began trying to defend Polanski there was an outcry - to the great embarrassment of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who also initially defended Polanski.

Polanski is in a Zurich jail facing deportation to the U.S. over an outstanding conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
But Mitterand has been leading the calls for the famous film director to be freed.

Today he was slammed by critics on French television and radio.
Benoit Hamon, the opposition Socialist Party spokesman, said: ‘As a minister of culture he has drawn attention to himself by defending a film maker and he has written a book where he said he took advantage of sexual tourism.

'To say the least, I find it shocking.’

Jean-Marie Le Pen’s far-right National Front Party has also called for Mitterand’s resignation.

In turn, Mitterand responded that he was ‘flabbergasted’ by the fuss, saying: ‘If the National Front drag me through the mud then it is an honour for me. If a leftist politician drags me through the mud then it is a humiliation for him.’

Mitterrand joined the cabinet in June after Ms Bruni championed him as a friend of the arts from a great political dynasty.

France initially called for Polanski’s release, but has since withdrawn its support for the 76-year-old director of films like Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and The Pianist.

In recent years France has been active in prosecuting French citizens for sex with under-age prostitutes in Thailand.

In the past politicians could hide behind strict privacy laws and a general view among the French that private lives should remain just that.

Mitterrand’s late uncle, who was President from 1981 to 1995, kept a second family and illegitimate daughter secret until the year before he left office.

But conventions are changing, with the French voting public increasingly expecting the kind of transparency provided by the media in countries like Britain

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnew...z0TMYScbV2

The language in the article is also a disgrace.

Frederic Mitterand, who is openly gay and a close friend of First Lady Carla Bruni, had described the arrest of the film director for sleeping with a 13-year-old girl as ‘absolutely horrifying’.

Polanski did not "sleep" with a 13-year-old girl. He drugged and raped her, allegedly anally.

Benoit Hamon, the opposition Socialist Party spokesman, said: ‘As a minister of culture he has drawn attention to himself by defending a film maker and he has written a book where he said he took advantage of sexual tourism.

"Sexual tourism". Um, no. An utterly shameful phrase to describe organized paedophilia.