French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand is at the centre of a controversy due to a book he wrote in 2005, in which he describes paying for sex with boys in Thailand.

The matter surfaced when Mr Mitterrand, a nephew of the former French president, came out in support for filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was recently arrested in Switzerland for having sex with an underage girl in the 1970s. In a television interview Mr Mitterrand said he never had paid sex with underage boys, but only with men. He added that the book, written before he was active in politics, was not entirely autobiographical.