Eminentoes
Monsieur Sleaze
The stained face of French culture.
Flustered French parents hurriedly shooed their children away from the TV last week as a bland discussion program suddenly turned into a torrid description of cruising for gay sex in Asian brothels. “I got into the habit of paying for boys,” one of the participants read from a text. “All these rituals of a fair for the sale of Adonises, of a slave market, excite me enormously.… The profusion of very attractive and immediately available boys puts me into a state of desire which I no longer need to restrain or conceal.… Western morality, guilt and shame shatter to pieces. And the rest of the world can go to hell.”
The reading was from an autobiography baldly entitled La Mauvaise Vie (“The Bad Life”) by Frédéric Mitterrand, the French government’s new minister of culture. It was being read by Marine Le Pen, a leader of the right-wing National Front party, who was attacking Mitterrand for his passionate defense of Roman Polanski.
When Swiss police arrested Polanski in Zurich Sept. 26 at the request of U.S. authorities on charges of raping a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles in 1977, one of the first to fly to the film director’s defense was France’s minister of culture. He was “horrified” by the way a French citizen and a major artist was being treated, “thrown to the lions because of ancient history… a frightening America has just shown its face.” It was an astonishing statement by a high official of a government theoretically friendly to the U.S.
Many in France were uncomfortable with Mitterrand’s emotional justification of an avowed pedophile rapist. But Le Pen was one of the few to show up his brazen hypocrisy. “Does belonging to the showbiz caste exonerate its members from respecting laws and authorize them to escape prosecution for 30 years?” she asked. Then she began quoting from Mitterrand’s lurid account of his experiences as a sex tourist buying young men in Thailand and Indonesia, enjoying smiling kids trying to escape poverty by sweet-talking a middle-aged Frenchman who liked to hear them say in broken English, “I want you happy.” She concluded with a call for his resignation as being unfit to serve in a government that actively campaigns against sex tourism. Touché!
But Le Pen had done more than denounce France’s twisted position on Polanski. She had called attention to Mitterrand’s sordid past, shocking those who had not seen fit to read his 2005 autobiography — meaning most of France, including members of the government and your correspondent. Until now Mitterrand has been known — if he was known at all — as a lightweight radio and television personality who also happened to be the nephew of the late socialist president François Mitterrand.
After his election in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy picked him to head the French Academy in Rome, a sinecure with artistic pretensions. Though Mitterrand had no visible qualifications for the post, the move was part of Sarkozy’s policy of ouverture, including leftists in his administration as a way of defanging the opposition. Mitterrand had never been active in politics, but his name was synonymous in the public’s mind with 14 years of socialist government.
When Sarkozy discussed the new job with Mitterrand last summer during a cabinet reshuffle, Mitterrand says he asked the president whether the autobiography might be a problem. He now claims Sarkozy replied, “No, I found it courageous and talented.” That seems an unlikely comment from a man not known for his love of literature. A more likely explanation for the choice, many here believe, is the influence of Sarkozy’s wife, Carla Bruni, who has been coaching him in the finer things. A card-carrying member of the showbiz/arty set, she is credited with considerable influence over the president. She counts Mitterrand among her friends.
It didn’t take long for the socialists to seize on the issue that their virulent adversaries, the National Front, had raised, seconding Le Pen in calling for Mitterrand’s head. “We can’t have a minister who represents France encouraging the violation of our international engagements to fight sexual tourism,” said one socialist leader calling for his portfolio to be revoked.
France does indeed consider itself in the forefront of the fight against sex tourism, but Sarkozy’s team danced around this in trying to defend Mitterrand. “He hasn’t said anything against France’s position on that,” said an obviously embarrassed Henri Guaino, the president’s special counsellor, completely begging the question of his fitness for the job. The justice minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, philosophised that “There are difficult periods and shadows in everyone’s life.” The one word that no one uttered, either government members or media commentators, was that great taboo in sophisticated, post-Christian France: morality.
Mitterrand may have felt he could hide behind that, as well as the reluctance of the French media to report on politicians’ private lives. His uncle, after all, had maintained a secret second family, with mistress and illegitimate daughter kept at public expense, about which the complaisant press reported nothing. But possible sexual abuse by a minister was pushing even French tolerance too far.
Sensing that he was losing the battle for public opinion, Sarkozy — who has made no public statement on the affair as of this writing — huddled with his counsellors early Wednesday morning and decided Mitterrand should go on TV to explain himself. His appearance is not his trump card: with his fleshy, pendulous lower lip, hang-dog eyes, and soft, purring, insinuating voice, Mitterrand, 62, is perfectly cast as a sex tourist on the prowl through the boy brothels of Bangkok. Not the sort you would like to see scoutmaster of your son’s troop.
In an interview on a prime time nightly news program Thursday, he bobbed and weaved, trying to deflect questions about his ethics and making fine distinctions between his homosexuality and pedophilia. Visibly upset, he admitted to sex tourism but denied buying sex from minors, while saying, “Yes, I had relations with boys.” Asked to clear that up, he explained that, in his personal vocabulary of perversion, he habitually refers to the male prostitutes he has frequented as garçons or boys, and sometimes as gosses, or kids. In fact, he maintained, the prostitutes were about his age.
He condemned sex tourism — belatedly, some might find — and pedophilia, “in which I have never participated.” Polls show only about one-quarter of viewers found him convincing. As of today, Mitterrand still has not said exactly what he did in those Thai and Indonesian brothels, or how he knew that the “slaves” he abused were actually adult. And the basic question in all this remains unanswered: How can a man of his past and proclivities — a former sex tourist — be the official personification of French culture?
Besides the stain on the face of French culture, the other loser in l’affaire Mitterrand is Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency. When the socialist opposition is exhibiting more moral clarity than the supposedly conservative government, you know something is rotten in the state of France. Sarkozy came into office two years ago promising to repair the moral damage done by the 1968 student revolt and resulting relativism of values. Now his relations with the traditionalist and conservative voters who brought him to power are seriously compromised.
If the letters columns of newspapers and the comments on their websites are any indication, a great many French citizens feel disgusted with their government over this. Some are taking to the streets: when Mitterrand inaugurated an art exhibit in Bordeaux over the weekend, he was jeered by protesters pushing baby carriages and carrying posters saying, “Don’t touch our children. Mitterrand resign!”
About the Author
Joseph A. Harriss is The American Spectator’s Paris correspondent. His latest book, An American Spectator in Paris, was released this fall.
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frenchdude| 10.13.09 @ 6:49AM
The people of France is sick of being assimilated to far-right politics or called populist just because he had the willing of moral integrity. France is no longer under religion but moral values are still pregnant on regular people's mind.
Alan Brooks| 10.13.09 @ 8:29PM
if you touched Mitterand's underage kin, the bones in the hand you used might end up being fractured.
Alan Brooks| 10.13.09 @ 8:31PM
hypocrisy is the tribute French libertines pay to virtue.
Françoise| 10.13.09 @ 7:38AM
Good article.
A bit of a additional news on Frederic Mitterrand came from the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean... Mitterand sent a letter to a local judge with the letterhead of the French Academy in Rome, prestigious Villa Medicis.
In this letter, he vouches for the good character of that two young alleged rapists (since then condemned) on the French Island of Reunion (he now says for the good character of their parents, but how is that relevant then?) Not only did he write with the official letterhead of the Villa Medicis but he also promised free training and internships in Rome or Paris for those two thugs!
This with taxpayers' money.
Brock| 10.13.09 @ 8:06AM
At least Frenchdude has got the first six words right.
France, the self-proclaimed defender of human rights, doesn't care about morality or ethics anymore. Together with Italy, France portrays Old Europe as a medieval amusement park ruled by perverted elitists, obsessed by lust and luxury.
Melvin| 10.13.09 @ 8:14AM
Thailand has had somewhat success in combating sex tourism with minors, most notedly from the European Union, and to a lesser extent from the US, and other countries.
Well, Thailand's success is another Asian country's bane, as Thailand has driven many of these lecherous perverts to other poorer Asian country's who do not have the resources to adequately protect the children.
My wife and I visited the Philippines after many years and one of the biggest changes that disgusted me was these older white haired European men trolling the beaches and sections where my wife and I used to live looking for young boys and girls, but mostly boys.
My wife and I visited some of the children who are now adults of long ago friends and they told us, the child prostitution had become a big problem with these Europeans but, due to the
corruption of authorities, who are easily bribed, nothing much becomes of these transnational pedophiles in being prosecuted.
The thing that really pissed me off was in how blatant and in the open these pedophiles were about their search for gratification. They didn't even bother in trying to hide it, the locals attitude was, "We're poor,they bring money to our town."
It got so bad that my emotions just wanted to take one of these pedophile bastard's and string him up on a lamp post as talisman to drive the others off.
This small town by the sea used to be poor but clean, and the most trouble that happened was the occasional drunk getting into a fight and now the town where I had many good memories has turned their children over to these European white trash.
The French would be better served if they did to Mr. Mitterrand what the Italians did to Benito
Mussolini when they caught up with him during WWII.
But unfortunately instead of stringing up pedophiles here in this country a bill that is working its way through Congress and the Senate explicitly protects pedophiles in a hate crimes bill.
My God! This is what Liberal Progressivism gives us.
Nick| 10.13.09 @ 7:49PM
Sounds like a typical Horatio Alger story, doesn't it?
Jeanne| 10.13.09 @ 8:39AM
80% want him to resign. Any other poll is fake. (I'm refering to the one publish by canal +, the tv he worked for...)We want him out. Him and Sarkozy and his government: OUT! OUT! OUT!
http://img94.imageshack.us/img.....errand.png
And Frenchdude, there are still christians in France, only, they are never given any chance to speak out their faith.
Howard| 10.13.09 @ 8:49AM
Isn't France a role model country for where Obama wants to take the USA? Only from my dead, cold hands.
Dasboot| 10.13.09 @ 11:03AM
This news does not surprise me. There is something wrong with the Mitterrand family. The former president Mitterrand planned supported, supplied and trained the extremist Hutu government in Rwanda to slaughter over a million innoccent people in one of the most horrific genocides ever. Deviance runs in the family i guess with the gay pedophile nephew. The Mitterands are like France's Kennedy family.
Franck| 10.13.09 @ 12:04PM
Sarkozy shall pay for hiring someone whose book he found "courageous" (Nouvel Observateur Sept. 09).
Dasboot's comment on Mitterrand's support to Habyarimana's Government is pure propaganda from Ugandan invaders and their chief, dictator Kagame. Mitterrand actually tried to force both parties to negotiate in Arusha.
Brock| 10.13.09 @ 1:36PM
Jeanne, you sound desperate. I feel sorry for all those Frenchmen who suffer under the soft-dictatorial regime they've elected themselves. The only way to speak out it seems, is to hit the streets again and destroy public property. A democratic tragedy indeed, but business as usual for France.
Brock| 10.13.09 @ 1:58PM
Dasboot draws in the Kennedy's as if that makes it all ok. Deviance however is not a genetic disease. Deviance however lies in the rejection of reality: France is just one of many medium-sized countries. Spreading nude pictures of the president's wife all over the world, and having pedophile statesmen are now the present signs of France's new idea of moral superiority.
Brock| 10.13.09 @ 2:31PM
Franck wants Sarkozy to pay, but forgets that France's Old Boys government doesn't make its own buddies pay. No matter how corrupt, they always come back better(and most French love it).
About your dragging in of some France/African history: France's role in Africa was and still is responsible for some of the most sinister pages in Europe's history. Rewriting that history is nothing more than a cultural crime, common in many communist countries.
Dasboot| 10.13.09 @ 3:50PM
Brock- I clearly meant the Kennedy comparison as an insult. We are on the same page on France's role in African history. Frank's claim that Mitterand and France did not support the genocidaires would seem to be refuted by histoy. France supplied the Hutus with gernades, amunition and other weapons right until the 'invaders from Uganda' ended the genocide. Gernades from france were used to kill unarmed civilians. After a million were killed France decided for one last power grab with 'Operation Turquoise' The french soilders had orders to evacuate Mitterand's genocidal friends but were disgusted by the carnage they saw. The operation ended in shame. To this day France protects Agathe 'akuza' Habyarimana- a chief architect of the genoicde that I suppose Franck doesnt think happened. Just more propoganda from Kagame.
Brock| 10.13.09 @ 8:24PM
Dasboot, understood and appreciated.
Marc Jeric| 10.13.09 @ 2:47PM
Mitterand (the former president of France) was a collaborator of the Vichy government allied with Hitler. That was natural for a socialist like Mitterand - after all, the Hitler's party was a socialist party; itse full name was the German National Socialist Workers Party (Deutche Nazional-Sozialistische Arbeiter Partei). Why do we call them Nazis - a much better name would be Sozis.
Big Leo| 10.13.09 @ 4:30PM
I was hoping someone would bring up his Vichy past. He received a major medal from the Vichy government for his work in the youth movement. Of course he was a socialist-- what else?
just asking| 10.13.09 @ 5:23PM
What a bunch of anti-French, xenophobic, drivel
And, yet once again, the cretins on this site insist in the lunacy of equating The German National Socialists(NAZI's) with true Socialism/Socialists...it is so embarrasingly stupid, it is funny
Jeanne| 10.13.09 @ 5:50PM
I am not desperate, but angry. On the contrary, I am hopeful for I feel French people are so disgusted by what is happening, that they won't bear it anymore. Enough is enough. So many people feel oppressed by the rotten media.
Something is happening that won't be stopped so easily. Something is about to change in spite of the comedy and the lies. It may take some time, but some of us are fighting.
Brock| 10.13.09 @ 7:48PM
'Just Asking', the word cretin is now being used to describe a lunatic, an idiot or a spastic. The word became a medical term in the 18th century, from an Alpine French dialect prevalent in a region where persons were suffering a condition of
severely stunted physical and mental growth.
Lighten up!
People will try to break trough the mental Maginot lines your elitist governments have always created to keep their citizens at least 30 yrs behind the rest of the civilized world. Today the French are considered to be "les nouveaux analphabetes de l'Europe, bien conditionne pour la France et mal educe pour le monde" -(forgive me my limited knowledge of this fading language). Reason why many a Frenchman will jump to defense and revenge when his country is criticized, even when he agrees with it. Just Asking, are you one of them? ..... Just asking!
Brock| 10.13.09 @ 8:16PM
Jeanne, you're desperate and angry ( and scared) and you have the right to be. Believe me, I do understand your feelings of disgust, being fed up, etc. That some of you are fighting for some justice, some mental freedom and some ethics is hopeful.
Your English however is more than sufficient to tell the international media what's really happening in France. This blog is a good start and I salute you for it.
Suppose you continue on this path, what will be the consequences? Politkovskaya?
Sam H| 10.14.09 @ 12:04AM
Just Asking,
So you are here to represent the pro-French drivel?
Oh yeah? You and what army?
And, just for kicks, would you please expound on "true socialism?" Please?
This I must read.
Jeremiah| 10.14.09 @ 11:59AM
Damn right, Sam. Just Askin' is probably a french socialist checking the temperature overseas... Jeanne and Frenchdude, you are not alone and I tell it to you in the French language of the next decade: "Ziva Jeanne la meuf et French keum! Vous êtes trop cool et vous déchirez votre race grave!" I have to remind Just Askin' that nazism is just another name for socialism, just check the facts, bozo!
I'm sick and tired of watching my country become the laughingstock of Europe because of Nicoléon Sarkozy. And no, we didn't vote for his current agenda, we knew he was a loud mouth and a wind bag but we had no alternative as his challenger was a crazy, ENA* brainwashed, leftist would be Joan of Arc. The result is an administration with more socialist and bougnoules* than any sub committee in the UN, that has welcomed more dictators like Assad, Chavez, Khadafi or Bouteflika than any other country in the last ten years. We voted against socialism but we got it anyway, and with a vengeance. We're getting poorer, every week brings a new tax, our policemen and gendarmes are underpaid, underprotected against the arab youth and a cowardly hierarchy, our armed forces are a joke and the country is so islam friendly that it will become an islamic republic sooner or later. In the meantime, pedophiles like Mitterrand, Cohn-Bendit or Polanski are free to live their alternative lifestyle. Pray for us.
*Ecole Nationale d'Administration. It will put your brain in a shredder and turn an Einstein into a Jo Biden!
*Bougnoules, rebeus, moulouds, gris, ratons are some of the friendly nicknames we have for the arabs who live in France. I have faith: one day we won't use nicknames, we'll shoot.
just asking| 10.14.09 @ 2:58PM
Nope..I'm not French..nor EVEN a great fan of current French policies..
BUT..JUST find it incredibly stupid...ignorant ..mean-spirited..and sinister, when people trot out the "Nazi" slur against people whose viewpoints...while different, and perhaps oppose d to many here..are so far from what the Nazi's stood for, as to make using that taunt truely obscene.
All of my parents families were murdered by the German /Nazis..and to use that name ,in a completely different situation, is nothing less then to desecrate their memories...
Brock| 10.14.09 @ 8:05PM
Jeremiah, just a couple of questions.
1. How come that the French as the internationally recognized masters in linguistics and as the world champions of rhetoric, are not able to find the right words to explain what the solutions are to the problems the French are always complaining about?
2. Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?
3. What's your problem?
4. What's your solution?
Brock| 10.14.09 @ 8:15PM
Jeanne, is Jeremiah one of the consequences?
Brock| 10.14.09 @ 8:27PM
Just Asking: Move on!
Jeremiah| 10.15.09 @ 11:58AM
Dear Brock, I am not smarter than your average frog but I'm convinced that as a people we're perfectly able to find those right words and we even know what the solutions should be, but those solution are obviously illegal and, at least in France, it's also not legal to mention them... Better yet, to compound the difficulty it is not legal to mention the problems or describe their nature! Incredible? Mais pas du tout. As a matter of fact, after years of studying the behavior of liberals worldwide and the impact of political correctness in Western Europe, that suicidal attitude is quite common and is spreading real fast.
Do not put us down and try to stick to facts: We are your friends and we may be the only country never to have been at war with the US. Do not underestimate us as soldiers (this is one of the few matters I'm really familiar with) and do not make the confusion between our military and our politicians, you should know better after the Vietnam war that your military won and your Dems lost: Our tanks have no special gear boxes with five speeds in reverse but our politicians sure have no balls, never did and never will.
Gotta go. Forgive my poor command of your language.
Brock| 10.15.09 @ 3:24PM
Dear Jeremiah, thanks for answering, appreciate it! BTW, your English is more than adequate and you don't deserve the title average.
Having lived in France (and many other European countries): The famous French "art/joie de vivre" has become (or has always been) a kitsch product designed to breed the dreams of foreign tourists. It's not perfect anywhere, but nowhere in the world did I find an attitude so demeaning, sneaky and sleazy as in France. Frenchness is like a cult-religion you have to convert to completely and even when you do, it will never be enough. It's all about degradation and never about equality. It drove me against the wall and I got out. I sympathize with the ones which are forced to stay. I live in the north now and as a western guy in a muslim community, I enjoy their respectful ways and consider these hard-working people an asset to any society. It took me quite some time to get used to freedom again though.
Trying to cut through the French Fantasy people have, seems almost impossible, for there's no point in telling the truth when the truth doesn't wanna be heard. Still I do hope that somewhere, within the so many completely cornered people in France, there's an intelligent soul that, before turning to violence as a last resort, steps into the world of the international media and explains the enormous injustice being done to people in a country that claims to have invented human rights. If there is one thing worth fighting for, it is freedom of expression.
Am I making any sense Jeremiah?
Jeremiah| 10.16.09 @ 11:32AM
[nowhere in the world did I find an attitude so demeaning, sneaky and sleazy as in France. Frenchness is like a cult-religion you have to convert to completely and even when you do, it will never be enough. It's all about degradation and never about equality.]
Right on target, Mister Brock! I still love my country but, as I discovered at age 4 coming from Down Under and speaking only English, I have to admit that when you don't belong there, you never belong... Why is it so? People are so narrow minded sometimes that they make your regular redneck look like Mother Theresa. Spoken French has so many different accents depending on the area you live in that, if you ever speak with the Marseille accent while visiting Brittany or Burgundy, the smiles disappear and the questions are left unanswered... Remember that? Most French don't like your country because they don't know it. Damn! Most of them have never travelled farther than the next département anyway; and because you saved our ass twice in History (No good deed goes unpunished.)
The respectful ways and the hard working people of the muslim community must be the exception rather than the rule in most Western Europe, but you don't have to take my word for it, just come back to France, hire two bodyguards from the Christian Lebanese community (so they won't be too conspicuous) and walk the streets of any of the 400+ districts nationwide that have been declared unsafe by our police, and see for yourself.
Au revoir Monsieur Brock, nice talking to you.
Brock| 10.16.09 @ 7:15PM
A dude from Down Under in France; well I'll be a monkey's uncle! You wrote that in France it is illegal to mention the country's problems or describe the solutions. I do know that a Frenchman is supposed to radiate the French culture at all times and that defending and revenging the country's honor is a matter of death before glory, but this is beyond everything. You can't be serious. It sounds like a scene from One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. In the free world there's not one human being that could live under that contract.
You mentioned language/accent discrimination. Personally I met an old guy who was trying to enjoy his retirement, bought a house one mile up the road, but in another village. His new villagers didn't talk to him for five years. I thought that was sick, but he seemed to find that pretty normal.... When trying to register, a civil servant lady dropped the papers in the trash can right before my eyes.... A week later the local butcher came barging out of his store and slashed six children just coming out of school.... A month later a guy hung himself in my garden.... A drunken driver banged into my front gate and the police told me is was all my fault.... The local drugstore refused to sell birth control pills..... a French McDonalds clone called Buffalo Grill was closed down for using contaminated British beef for five years.... I've seen and smelled them spray poison over their famous vineyards 14 times in a season... The last year I was without power for 17 times. All this just ten miles away from the number four city in France. Nobody really seemed to care. "What can we do?" they said. "On doit vivre avec"
Is this why it's illegal to mention any problem? Is this how the facade needs to be protected? Is treating your legal immigrants, tourists, and even your fellow countrymen this way, not the reason that people are driven to violence? Is this not how revolutions are created and afterwards celebrated? Is this why a Frenchman can only feel free inside his own home? Is all this according to the famous principles of democracy that French philosophers gave to the world and which are practiced in many a civilized society? Is this the culture which we're supposed to/forced to admire? Is this too not the reason that the French are now ashamed to be French, like Americans were ashamed to be American when cowboy George was riding his high horse?
Excuse for blowing my top Jeremiah, you don't deserve this. But you know, when a man's gotto, a man's gotto go.
Hope to hear from ya!
Brock| 10.20.09 @ 8:15AM
A 49 year old woman in Southern France posted "Boo, the liar" as a comment on a French Secretary of State for Family video on Dailymotion, the French version of Youtube. The woman, Dailymotion and Youtube have been accused of "public slander" by the French Repression of Delinquency against Individuals Brigade.
'Public slander" makes it ever more difficult for the French to exercise their freedom of expression even in the international media. I wouldn't be surprised if Jeanne and Jeremiah have already been banned to some deserted island and I praise them for their courage.
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