that his partners were middle-aged men . His actions , Mitterrand said , were `` without a doubt , an error , '' but `` a crime , no , '' he said in the interview . Despite recent calls to resign from the far-right National Front and the left-leaning Socialist Party , Mitterrand , who is openly gay , vowed to stay in his job . He said he met Thursday morning with French President Nicolas Sarkozy , and that the president supports him . In a July interview with the weekly French news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur , Sarkozy said he had read Mitterrand 's book , and found it `` courageous and talented . '' The controversy over the revelations in his book -- which he called neither autobiography nor memoir -- erupted anew after Mitterrand deplored the arrest last week of filmmaker Roman Polanski , who fled the United States in 1977 after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl . The culture minister told TF1 that he was `` too emotional '' when he denounced the filmmaker 's arrest in Switzerland as `` horrifying . '' `` To see him thrown to the
PARIS , France -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said Thursday he will not resign over accounts in a book he wrote in 2005 about paying to have sex with `` boys '' in Thailand . Frederic Mitterrand admitted to paying for sex with `` boys '' in his 2005 autobiography , `` The Bad Life . '' In an interview with French television network TF1 , Mitterrand said he `` absolutely condemn -LSB- s -RSB- sexual tourism , which is a disgrace , and ... pedophilia , '' in which he insisted he has never participated . Despite the use of the French word `` garcon '' in his 2005 book `` The Bad Life , '' Mitterrand , 62 , has previously said the term did not mean `` little boys . '' He said the males he paid for sex were his age , or maybe five years younger , but not underage -- and the relations were consensual . `` Anyway , you can recognize someone who 's 40 years old ... '' he told TF1 . A 40-year-old man `` does n't look like a minor , '' he added , suggesting