l'affaire Mitterand

I suppose if you are not familiar with French politics, the present "scandal" making the news regarding the present Minister of Culture, Frederic Mitterand could be quite confusing.

First of all, what is a Mitterand doing in the government of UMP President Nicolas Sarkozy?

Francois Mitterand was the very popular Socialist President of France who ruled for 12 years which included his last term when he was visibly ill with cancer. Frederic is his nephew who rose to fame using his family name to make a carreer in the art world as a pseudo intellectual media figure.

The openly gay, flamboyant Frederic was never very political. His Aunt, the widow of Francois, the scholar and writer, Danielle Mitterand recently said of Freddy, "We always knew he was a little fascist."

None the less, he was a television presenter and writer who specialized on royalty. His name opened many doors and his mellifluous voice was mocked by comedians as the epitome of fatuous, boring and pretentious pendantic narration.

He became part of the coterie surrounding the present wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, Carla Bruni. About 3 months ago, she persuaded her husband to get rid of the fairly popular Minister of Culture, actually one of the few remaining women in his government and replace her with Mitterand.

This, at the time, was seen as another one of Sarko's brilliant coups, co opting the opposition by bringing a Mitterand into his government. Immediately, it became apparent that this would not be the case as evident by the reception he recieved at the Left's Annual Fete d'Humanitie last month where he was booed off the stage when he tried to speak.

Then, the Polanski case occurred and immediately, without consultation, Mitterand made an indignant defense of Polanski, who is in fact a French citizen. Frederic had drawn attention to himself. The media criticized him for his pompous style. He had bells installed in his offices to summon his uniformed aides and had redone the offices he used to his regal standards.

On Tuesday, the proverbial shit hit the fan, as Marine LePen, the daughter of the far right leader, Jean-Marie LePen of the now struggling Front Nationale brought up the 2005 auto biography by Mitterand called "Un Mauvais Vie", or "A Bad Life".

In his book, Mitterand is quite open about his sexual life and even bragged of his attraction to young boys and his trips to Thailand, in which he detailed his sexual tourism.

"I got into the habit of paying for boys," Mr Mitterrand wrote, adding that his attraction to young male prostitutes continued even though he knew "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."

This is all very unfortunate for the legitimate struggle for gay rights and equality in the real world.

The very real problems of violence towards gays in the Banlieus is a big subject in the news this month. The revelations about Mitterand and his sexual pecadillos seriously muddies the real issues.

The UMP Party seems to be trying to rally around Freddy, but the far right elements are keepiing their diistance. Frederic is making the media rounds, but his naturally arrogant and combative manner and his propensity to make outrageous statements are not winning him points with the press or people.

Sarkozy will hang on to him as long as he can, he has always had a very hard time admitting a mistake, but we are 72 hours into this spin cycle and I'm beginning to smell carrion............