 Former French education minister Luc Ferry has told a TV chatshow that a member of a previous French government abused children in Morocco, suggesting that reporting of the affair was stifled by strict libel and privacy laws. Ferry, a French philosopher who was in government from 2002 to 2004, told the Grand Journal on Canal Plus that senior state sources informed him of a former minister taking part in "an orgy with little boys" in the tourist town of Marrakech. He added that the information had been given to him by the "highest authorities of the state", including a former prime minister. France - which has strict privacy laws and a press tradition of respect for private life - had been rocked by recent sex claims against politicians. A conservative junior minister, Georges Tron, has resigned from the government following allegations of sexual harassment.
– A French minister was caught in the middle of an orgy with young boys in Morocco but it was covered up by France, a former French official has charged. French and Moroccan prosecutors have launched a probe into former education minister Luc Ferry's explosive allegations, presented during a TV talk show, the BBC reports. Ferry, a philosopher who was in government from 2002 until 2004, says the "highest authorities of the state," including a former prime minister, informed him of the incident at that time. The pedophile minister was flown back to France and authorities hushed it up, says Ferry. It's not clear what government role, if any, the former minister may be playing now. Ferry refused to name the former minister for fear of running afoul of France's strict libel laws. Rumors of the Moroccan orgy have long circulated in French media circles, notes the Guardian. "All of us here probably all know who I'm talking about," Ferry told fellow panelists during a TV debate. Ferry's allegations come as French society is taking a harder look at the behavior of its politicians in the wake of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest on sex assault charges.