The Hill News

The case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) accused of attempting to rape a chambermaid in a New York hotel, has shone a light on the conspiracy of silence among French journalists.

When French President Francois Mitterrand died, the French people discovered his mistress, photographed at his graveside. Every French journalist knew about the president’s second family, but none had reported on it.

You can’t only put it down to France’s privacy laws. In the case of Mitterrand’s mistress, Anne Pingeot, it turned out she was being housed courtesy of the French taxpayer â€" surely a matter of public interest.

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