A young Swedish politician who is standing in next month's election is claiming to be the illegitimate son of France's longest serving president Francois Mitterrand. Hravn Forsne, 25, told reporters Friday he was the lovechild of Mitterrand and Swedish journalist Christina Forsne, who has admitted having a 15-year affair with the Socialist leader.
Mitterrand, who died of cancer in 1996 a year after leaving office, was known to have had a daughter outside marriage with a French woman in 1974, in addition to his two sons with wife Danielle. Christina Forsne, 66, a former Paris correspondent for the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, admitted two years ago that she had embarked on a long affair with Mitterrand after meeting him in 1979 during an interview in Sweden. But Christina, known as Chris in Sweden, always refused to say whether he fathered her son Hravn - born in 1988 when Mitterrand had just won a second seven-year presidential term.
Hravn is now running for election with the conservative pro-free market Moderate Party in Sweden's September 14 election. "I want to be judged for who I am, not for who my father was," he told local newspaper Kungsbacka-Posten. "But okay, Francois Mitterrand was my dad."
Forsne told AFP that he was speaking out because he believed it was important for voters to know his background. "I will only speak about it to the local media, because it's important for them and for my fellow citizens, for the voters to know their candidate," he said.
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