French minister criticised in ‘boy sex’ row

FRENCH culture minister Frederic Mitterrand is facing calls for his sacking over a growing scandal involving an old admission that he had paid for sex with boys.

Both far-right and left politicians have joined in a campaign criticising Mitterrand and now risks throwing the government into a crisis.

The far-right National Front party has conceded that it went looking for dirt about Mitterrand after his impassioned defence last week of film director Roman Polanski. The director was arrested in Switzerland on US charges connected with his having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 in Los Angeles.