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| Former French Education Minister Luc Ferry received the information from top government sources Photo: AP |
12:43PM BST 01 Jun 2011
A French former minister went to Morocco for an orgy with "little boys", according to an ex-minister, who claims the country's strict privacy laws led to a cover-up.
Luc Ferry, a French philosopher who was in government from 2002 to 2004, told a TV chat show that an unnamed minister had been "caught" taking part in "an orgy with little boys" in the tourist town of Marrakesh.
"All of us here probably all know who I'm talking about," he told Le Grand Journal on channel Canal Plus on Monday night. Asked if he had any proof, he said: "Of course not. But I have testimony from cabinet members at the highest level, state authorities at the highest level."
He said he received the information from top government sources, "particularly from the prime minister", suggesting that reporting of the affair never reached the public due to strict libel and privacy laws.
Mr Ferry declined to name the former minister, implying that he feared France's notoriously strict libel laws. "If I let his name out now, it's me who will be charged and doubtlessly convicted, even if I know that the story is true."
His comments came amid an emotive national debate over whether journalists had failed to lift the lid on cases of sexual harassment because politicians' private lives have long been deemed off limits.
Still reeling from the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund chief, on sexual assault charges, France's political class was struck by a fresh sex scandal last weekend with the resignation of Georges Tron. The public works minister is accused of molesting two former female staff members. He denies the allegations but resigned as he did not want to be a burden to the government.
French journalists and women's rights campaigners have predicted a "before and after Strauss-Kahn", suggesting that France will henceforth adopt a less tolerant, "Anglo-Saxon" approach to sexual harassment or overtly sexist behaviour in politics.
But Mr Ferry came under heavy criticism from members of President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party for his comments.
Alain Juppé, the foreign minister, said: "If one has the conviction about a crime, one seizes the justice system, one doesn't simply go and gossip in the press."
Dominique Paillé, a former UMP spokesman, said: "When one makes such claims, founded or not, one has the courage to say who (the person is)." He claimed the Strauss-Kahn affair had pushed the privacy pendulum from "omerta to a free-for-all".
"We will no longer return to the former methods, unfortunately, which guaranteed a certain tranquillity regarding public figures' private lives," he added.
Rachida Dati, the former justice minister and a Euro MP, said that Mr Ferry risked prosecution for failing to report a crime – an offence that carries a maximum three-year jail term and 45,000-euro fine.
Several members of the cabinet when Mr Ferry was education minister, including then prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, said they had "no knowledge" of any paedophile affair.
Mr Ferry on Wednesday said his comments had been misinterpreted and were in fact a defence of France's privacy laws. "I wanted to defend the press that respect(s) privacy and which (doesn't) make itself guilty of libel," he said. "I have no proof (of the paedophile claims), nor any precise facts on this affair, but at the time when I was minister I heard about it. People relayed thousands of things on thousands of ministers but I will never say anything (about them), except if something puts France in danger."
Mr Ferry's claims come two years after a scandal involving Frédéric Mitterrand, the French culture minister, who admitted to having sex with Thai male prostitutes in an autobiography.
He later said his actions were a "mistake" and his book was not "an apology for sex tourism". Still in office, Mr Mitterrand is not thought to be the minister referred to by Mr Ferry.
