The survey was conducted this week, when Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand had to defend his honor over a book he wrote describing paying young men for sex.

Mitterrand has kept his job so far, but the controversy has posed yet another challenge for Sarkozy, who is struggling with France’s worst economic slump since World War II.

Sarkozy hasn’t spoken publicly about Mitterrand’s book, though Mitterrand said the two met privately Thursday and Sarkozy “confirmed his confidence” in the culture minister.

The poll by the CSA agency shows 41 percent of respondents trust the president to confront the country’s problems, down 6 percent from a month earlier. The poll of 1,003 people was conducted by telephone Tuesday and Wednesday. No margin of error was given.

The polling agency noted a particular drop in support among Sarkozy’s core voters, who oppose his policies of reaching out to those outside his right-wing circle – such as Mitterrand, nephew of the late former French president, Socialist Francois Mitterrand.

Politicians and voters remained divided over the culture minister, after he went on national television Thursday night to tamp down calls for his resignation and explain his complicated personal past.

Mitterrand is an easy target for traditionalists: Openly gay, he wrote a book in 2005 called “La mauvaise vie,” or “The Bad Life,” in which he details encounters with male prostitutes in Thailand.

He uses the ambiguous term “boys,” common language in French to refer to gay men. Mitterrand recently jumped to the defense of filmmaker Roman Polanski, in a Swiss jail on U.S. charges related to sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl.

Calls from the extreme right and the left mounted this week for Mitterrand’s resignation.

Speaking on TF1 television Thursday, he insisted he had not hired minors and that the book was not a straight autobiography. He said he had no intention of quitting his job.

“I condemn sexual tourism, which is a disgrace. I condemn pedophilia, which I have never in any way participated in,” Mitterrand said. “All those who accuse me of this kind of thing should be ashamed.”

Some in the governing UMP party welcomed his explanation.

“I found him very moving,” Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said Friday on BFM television. “In each person’s life, there are doubtlessly difficult periods, and shadows.”

Mitterrand’s staunchest critics were unconvinced. Marine Le Pen, vice president of the far-right National Front party, called him a “liar” and reiterated calls for him to be fired. She ignited the controversy this week by reading excerpts from the book on television.

While politicians’ personal lives in France are traditionally considered private business, Mitterrand’s experiences have worried some.

“He should resign. What he did is serious, not OK and not legal. He shouldn’t be in the government anymore,” said Alexandre Binon, a 24-year-old student from Rouen visiting Paris.

The book raised no more than literary eyebrows when it was published, and it drew little attention when Mitterrand was named to the government in June. Until he became France’s guardian of culture, Mitterrand was known primarily as a television personality who made profiles of the famous.

I know how the game is supposed to play. Show some moral outrage. Be shocked and appalled that Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican who had no problem voting against gay adoption when he was a U.S. senator congressman and was unequivocal in his opposition to gay marriage, got caught in some marital scandal. If I were a teenager still in the afterglow of a “Catcher in the Rye” high (I loathe that book), then indignation at hypocrisy would be called for. However, I haven’t seen my teenage years since Brothers Johnson ruled the radio.

The Sanford scandal is boring. Sure some of the details are rather juicy (seems to me he could have planned his Argentina trip with a smidgen more subterfuge), but infidelity is as common as dirt. As for the pretense, like Big Daddy noted that’s part of the human condition and I really can’t get bent out of shape when there is a glaring distinction between what a pol espouses and how she actually lives her life. That is not newsworthy, yet we as voters clutch the pearls when a politician admits some hot mess most of us have engaged in. No need to worry. I’m not sharing your secrets. And if you have been faithful to your lovah please don’t announce how you are a better spouse than Sanford.

This episode didn’t change my opinion about Sanford and I’m sure those getting the most pleasure out of his fall never gave him a dime or a vote. I would rather spend time critiquing his anti-adoption stance instead of getting some perverse pleasure out of failings that we all share.

Haggard made the comments in a two-part episode of the syndicated television show “Divorce Court” to be broadcast April 1-2. The show released a partial transcript Tuesday.

Haggard resigned as pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after a male prostitute from Denver alleged a cash-for-sex relationship with him in November 2006.

Haggard confessed to “sexual immorality.”

Both Haggard and his wife Gayle appear on “Divorce Court,” but her comments about the possibility of a divorce weren’t released.

Ted Haggard said he wasn’t rejecting his wife but thought he had become so “toxic” that divorce was best for her and their children. He said she replied, “No way. I’m not going to do that.”

The Haggards were to be paid an undisclosed amount for the “Divorce Court” appearance. It is the latest in a series of public appearances that started in January. He also has appeared on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and “Larry King Live.”