Frédéric Mitterrand

Frédéric Mitterrand born 21 August 1947 is a French politician who served as Minister of Culture and Communication of France from 2009 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy Throughout his career he has been an actor screenwriter television presenter writer producer and director Born in Paris he is the nephew of François Mitterrand who was the president of France from 1981 to 1995 and the son of engineer Robert Mitterrand 19152002 and Edith Cahier the niece of Eugène Deloncle the cofounder of La Cagoule He attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly in Paris and studied history and geography at the Paris West University Nanterre La Défense and political science at Sciences Po He taught economics history and geography at EABJM from 1968 to 1971 In 1978 he was a film critic at Jinforme From 1971 to 1986 he ran several art film cinemas in Paris Olympic Palace Entrepôt and OlympicEntrepôt He also had roles in a number of films and in the 1980s was active as a producer and director in TV productions In June 2008 Mitterrand was appointed as the director of the French Academy in Rome by President Nicolas Sarkozy A year later on 23 June 2009 Mitterrand was appointed to the French government as the Minister of Culture and Communications until May 2012 Mitterrand who is openly bisexual writes a monthly column for Têtu Mitterrands autobiographical novel The Bad Life French La mauvaise vie was a best seller in 2005 In the book he details his delight whilst visiting the male brothels of Bangkok and writes I got into the habit of paying for boys The profusion of young very attractive and immediately available boys put me in a state of desire I no longer needed to restrain or hide At the time of its release Mitterrand was applauded for his honesty but he has had to defend his writings after he publicly defended Roman Polanski when Polanski was detained in Switzerland on an American request for extradition for raping a thirteenyearold girl On 5 October 2009 Marine Le Pen of the French National Front Party quoted sections of the book on French television accusing him of having sex with underage boys and engaging in sex tourism demanding that Mitterrand resign his position as culture minister Amongst others he was also criticised by the Socialist Party spokesman Benoît Hamon who stated 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 On the other hand some conservatives supported Mitterrand and a close aide to Nicolas Sarkozy said the French President backed his Culture Minister describing the controversy around him as pathetic Source Article Frédéric Mitterrand from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30