Gossip v privacy for the powerful in France

Three weeks after the charges of sexual assault in a New York hotel, repercussions from the Strauss-Kahn affair continue to reverberate across France - as a row over new allegations against an unnamed political figure shows. ...

The privacy v public interest debate blew up in extraordinary fashion this week with the impromptu remarks of a former education minister apparently accusing another former minister of indulging in illegal under-age sex.

US and British papers take a different approach
Luc Ferry, who is also an accomplished writer and media commentator, was trying to make the point that in France - unlike in other countries - there are laws that prevent the reporting of private peccadilloes.

He told a Canal-Plus TV chat show that he had it on good authority that a certain ex-minister had been "caught at an orgy in Morocco with young boys". He did not divulge any names.

The rumour was widely known, he said, but had never been reported because the ex-minister was protected by the law.