'Sexus Politicus' Grips France

PARIS, Oct. 18, 2006 — -- The French are learning quite a bit these days about their political leaders' sex lives.

What has been a subject of discussion at French dinner tables for some time has become the central line of a new book. Just seven months ahead of the presidential election here, the book "Sexus Politicus" rides high on the lists of books bought in France, with 150,000 copies sold so far.

The authors, veteran investigative reporters Christophe Deloire and Christophe Dubois, paint a broad picture of the connection between politics and sex in France. After a two-year investigation, the authors have exposed the private details of some of France's ruling class.

Did President Chirac have a child with a Japanese mistress? And did Chirac and his Socialist predecessor, François Mitterand, have a lover in common?

Apart from being remembered as the longest-serving president of France, Mitterand is also known as the first French president to publicly acknowledge the existence of a daughter born out of wedlock, Mazarine.

The popular French magazine Paris Match broke the news in 1994, just months before Mitterand left office, and both of his families attended his funeral. Thanks to the book, we now know that Mitterand was far from the first.

Shocking? Not necessarily in France.

"It's not because they are politicians that they can't have extramarital affairs. It happens to anybody. Why not them?" said Charlotte Gremaud, 26, who lives just outside Paris. "There are millions of French husbands cheating on their wives, and vice versa," said Paris citizen Patrick Nebout, 45. "Politicians are just like regular people. They do the same."

Despite the book's success, many won't openly admit that they're interested in learning more about their high-powered politicians' sex lives.