Ex-UK minister: Don't adopt French privacy laws
(AP) — A former British government minister brought down by a tabloid kiss-and-tell has told the country's media ethics inquiry that adopting French-style privacy laws would be a mistake.
David Mellor said French reluctance to report on public figures' private lives had meant former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn almost became president.
Strauss-Kahn was arrested after a New York hotel maid accused him of sexual assault. Prosecutors dropped the charges, but he faces a civil lawsuit, as well as other sexual allegations in France.
Mellor said Tuesday that for years French privacy laws had concealed "Strauss-Kahn's manifest unsuitability for office" from the public.
The British inquiry began amid a scandal over tabloid wrongdoing. Mellor resigned from Prime Minister John Major's government in 1992 after tabloid stories about his relationship with an actress.
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