Swedish Author Reveals 17-Year Affair With Mitterrand

In death, Francois Mitterrand exposed his double life, as his wife, longtime mistress and illegitimate daughter grieved side-by-side at his casket.

Now, the private life of the late Socialist president turns out to be even more complex, and included a 17-year relationship with a Swedish journalist who this week published a book about trips abroad together and visits to his country home in the presence of the first lady.

In the book “Don’t You Like Life?” - published in Sweden by Ficher and Co. and soon to appear in French translation from Editions Seuil - Christina Forsne says Mitterrand’s death on Jan. 8 gave her the freedom to set the record straight.

“What I wanted to say in this book is that I knew a man whose world was simple, much simpler than people said, a vulnerable man, a man with weaknesses, a man who was infinitely human,” the 48-year-old Forsne said in an interview published Thursday in Paris-Match magazine.

Though the book never says the two were lovers, Forsne describes their relationship as “a loving friendship.”