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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Africa Europe Latin America Middle East North America French minister clings to job after 'Asian boy sex' row AFP - Saturday, October 10 Send IM Story Print Video: French politicians from the left and right on Thursday demanded that Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand answer allegations that a novel he wrote in 2005 endorses sex tourism. The 62-year-old nephew of late president Francois Mitterand last week came under fire for defending filmmaker Roman Polanski. Now he faces new criticism for his book. Duration : 01:49 PARIS (AFP) - – France's Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand appeared to have saved his job Friday after an emotional television appearance in which he admitted paying for gay sex but angrily denied paedophilia charges. Mitterrand has faced calls for his resignation this week over a chapter in his autobiographical novel, "The Bad Life", in which the narrator describes paying for "boys" in brothels in Thailand and Indonesia. The 62-year-old minister appeared on French television on Thursday evening to deny the book was a defence of paedophilia or sex tourism, insisting the Asian sex workers he patronised were consenting adults. Mitterrand said President Nicolas Sarkozy had given him full support, and the two men on Friday made a public appearance together in Paris, suggesting that his job was safe for now. But the scandal comes at a difficult time for the French president, who is struggling with rising unemployment, exploding deficits and a series of gaffes by key ministers. A poll by the CSA agency for Le Parisien newspaper and conducted on October 7 and 8 at the height of the Mitterrand furore, showed Sarkozy's approval rating down six percent month-on-month at 41 percent. The leader of Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party in parliament, Jean-Francois Cope, welcomed Mitterrand's televised confession, watched by more than eight million people, but admitted the government's standing had been damaged. "It's very likely that public opinion, or part of it, will experience this period negatively, and I understand that completely," he said. Marine Le Pen, deputy leader of the far-right National Front, said Mitterrand's case showed there was "one morality for the privileged" and another for ordinary people. The scandal also raised hackles in Southeast Asia, where Magdalena Sitorus, a member of Indonesia's Commission for Child Protection, called on Mitterrand to go. "Ethically, he should resign," she told AFP in Jakarta. Sarkozy hired Mitterrand in June, delighted to bring the nephew of late Socialist president Francois Mitterrand into his right-wing government. The minister is also a friend of Sarkozy's supermodel wife, Carla Bruni. Mitterrand's book is four years old, but controversy erupted this week after he defended filmmaker Roman Polanski, who is being held in Switzerland on a US warrant for a 1978 conviction for sex with a 13-year-old girl. The minister had previously explained that in his book, which was marketed as a memoir but which he now says is not "entirely autobiographical," he had used the term "boys" to describe men closer to his own age. "I absolutely condemn sexual tourism," Mitterrand told TF1 television. "I condemn paedophilia, in which I have never in any way participated, and all the people who accuse me of that type of thing should be ashamed." Asked if he regretted paying for sex in Thailand, he replied he had committed "a mistake, without doubt, a crime, no. "Because I was each time with people who were my age and who were consenting," he said. "You recognise somebody who is 40 years old. A 40-year-old boxer really does not look like a minor." Arnaud Montebourg, an opposition Socialist lawmaker, said Mitterrand's "tardy condemnation of sexual tourism is in contradiction with his writings, which contain no condemnation of this sort." A leading Catholic organisation also hit out at Mitterrand, claiming it was "inappropriate" for him to keep his job. "The real question is why he was chosen to represent French culture when his book and his past have been known of since 2005," the National Confederation of Catholic Family Associations (CNAFC) said. In 2005, Mitterrand's defence of "The Bad Life" was broadly accepted and the book was praised for its shocking honesty and literary quality. The passages in the book that sparked controversy deal with the narrator's description of the excitement and guilt he feels as he visits brothels and boy bars in Thailand and Indonesia. 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