Strauss-Kahn guilty or not?

[robertlouis]

From today's Guardian. No smoke without fire, it would seem. And France's remarkable tolerance for sexual misbehaviour is in the spotlight. It's like a plot strand from the excellent French series Spiral:

Less than three weeks ago, Dominique Strauss-Kahn sat down in a Paris restaurant for an off-the-record lunch with two journalists from the daily Libération. The IMF chief outlined the three biggest personal hurdles in his relentless campaign to become president of France: "Money, women and being a Jew."

He started with women. "Yes I like women, so what?" he asked. "For years, there's been talk of photos of a giant orgy, but I've never seen them come out," he added, challenging his opponents to produce long-rumoured pictures of a night at a posh swingers' club dating back decades. He said he had warned President Nicolas Sarkozy (while they stood side by side at the urinals of the gents during a recent international summit) to stop smearing him over his private life. Strauss-Kahn then volunteered to the journalists a hypothetical example of something that could bring him down: "A woman raped in a parking lot who is promised half a million euros to make up her story."

Before Strauss-Kahn's opponents began throwing what one socialist described as "stink bombs" at him, he was keen to present himself as the victim of a potentially ruthless campaign.

Everyone in French political and media circles knew Strauss-Kahn's achilles heel was his attitude to women. Even his closest political allies admitted he was an inveterate seducer, an unashamed libertine. But what makes the scandal new and unprecedented in a presidential race is the crossing of the line to sexual violence, attempted rape and brutal assault.

Strauss-Kahn denies the charges, and his allies call him a seducer without the "profile of a rapist". But if, as the extreme-right Marine Le Pen affirms, all of Paris had long been abuzz with talk of his "rather pathological relationship" with women, why wasn't Strauss-Kahn pulled up on it before in France? He had already been chastised by the IMF over one affair with a junior in 2008.

It raises the uncomfortable question in the French media and politics of two parallel worlds: what is printed, and what is behind it, gossip, and what must officially remain "unsaid".

Consensual extramarital sex is a non-story in France, part of the right to a private life protected by fearsome libel and privacy laws. Having a mistress, philandering, even routinely propositioning journalists have been brushed aside for countless political figures. "How many senior male French politicians aren't either a groper, a cheater, a charmer or a serial seducer? And it goes right to the top of the political class," sighed one news editor. "France is still a kind of monarchy that kept the aristocratic morals of the 18th century. The lord of the manor has a right to the women; the king has his mistresses." If more allegations against Strauss-Kahn come to light and lead to criminal charges, it will call into question a taboo in France about speaking out.

Tristane Banon, the novelist and journalist is, according to her lawyer, preparing to go to police alleging Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her in 2002. Her mother, Anne Mansouret, a senior Socialist figure, said that she advised her daughter not to file a lawsuit at the time because Strauss-Kahn was a politician with a bright future, as well as a friend of the family. But she said that even the fact that her daughter later spoke out publicly about the attack on TV had left her "traumatised" by the subsequent "harassment" in her professional life over having dared to speak out.

Her mother suggested there was a kind of "invisible barrier" put up on her work projects, as if media bosses and publishers feared the consequences of "what she could reveal". Strauss-Kahn's spokesman has previously denied the claim, and said Banon had invented the allegation to generate publicity for herself.

The journalists, Christophe Deloire and Christophe Dubois, broke a taboo in their 2006 book, Sexus Politicus, about politicians' sexual behaviour. They wrote of Strauss-Kahn's tendency to "seduction to the point of obsession", mentioning, but not naming, female journalists who had been irritated by his gestures towards them. They also referred to one senior civil servant who didn't take up his offer to "come up to his office to relax".

It seemed striking that when Strauss-Kahn left for the IMF in Washington in 2007, with many politicians privately wondering how he would cope in a puritan US which frowns upon sexual advances, only one journalist raised the issue. Brussels correspondent for Libération, Jean Quatremer, wrote on his blog: "Strauss-Kahn's only real problem is his relationship to women. Too heavy … it borderlines harassment." Strauss-Kahn's communications team asked him to take the blog down. Quatremer explained to Le Parisien that he had refused, saying if they thought it was libellous, they could sue. They did not.

In 2008, the French press began to more openly touch on the issue of Strauss-Kahn and women after the IMF investigated his affair with a junior colleague, the Hungarian economist Piroska Nagy. He was cleared of abusing his position but was forced to apologise. Nagy said she thought he had a "problem" which affected his ability to work with women. Others in France spoke out. The Socialist party MP Aurelie Filipetti recalled a "very heavy, very pressing" come-on to her by Strauss-Kahn. She said that afterwards: "I made sure I never ended up alone with him in a closed space."

The humorist Stephane Guillon went furthest in 2009, satirising Strauss-Kahn's "obsession with females" on the equivalent of Radio 4's Today programme. Strauss-Kahn accused him on air of "nastiness" and Guillon – already under fire for lampooning several political figures – was sacked shortly afterwards.

In 2006, when Strauss-Kahn failed in his bid to become the Socialist presidential candidate, part of his problem was his publicly haughty and condescending attitude to the eventual winner, Ségolène Royal.

But five years later, as Strauss-Kahn's opinion poll ratings soared and he was tipped to become president, it was clear that a saga like the Nagy affair had no effect on the electorate's view. Sexual violence is another matter entirely. In a country where the leader's sexual habits are officially ignored, allegations of attempted rape have been a severe shock.

[Prospero]

Hmmm... spiral indeed. The first thought that crossed my mind was that this was a fix... and it would not surorise me if the charges ended up being dropped. Not in time for his bid for office of course. Clearly the background stuff suggests he is something of a predatory male. But that doesn't seem to be a bar from office (Sarkozy, Berlusconi etc). His Jewishness had evaded me - but the french record on that is hardly good. (Collaborative French in Vichy france etc - the Dreyfuss affair etc.) Yes - it would be easy for someone to pay a poorly paid chambermaid a large sum of money to make these allegations. So it COULD be a plot - from right or far right. My bet is the charges will be withdrawn - but not in time to save his career.

On and the worst outcome from all this for the wider world is that the French national Front's electoral chances are now boosted.

[Ben]

Former Reagan official Paul C. Roberts has an interestin' take on it:

[maaarc]

I suspect Mr. Roberts has hit the proverbial nail on the head.
More of his thoughts on various subjects can be found here:

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/all_columns.htm

[Stavros]

The conspiracy theorists who see the pale hand of 'the bankers' behind all this were blamed for the downfall of Eliot Spitzer who was 'on the verge' of 'shaking up Wall St', but who made the fatal political mistake of applying fierce values to others while dropping his pants and getting found out. DSK has been notorious for years, the actual truth of what happened in New York is probably banal; and I don't doubt DSK will plea bargain -bargain pretty much anything- to avoid a jail term; and he has sacrificed his political career for what? Countries join the IMF, nobody forces them to, if they don't want the 'structural adjustment' medicine it offers, they can always cancel their membership, but they don't because the IMF is there to issue short-term loans, and to corrupt third world regimes any source of money is welcome -its for them after all, not their citizens, so I don't see what the problem was with DSK at the helm and his belief that there should be more regulation of the banks -he needed to be caught in a 'honey trap' for that?

So much hysteria, for nothing.

[Prospero]

No the honeytrap - if indeed it was that - might have more to do with french electoral politics. But it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing conspiracies everywhere. (But after the WMD business in Iraq you can see why)

[Stavros]

Conspiracy theories appeal to people who feel powerless, and who ascribe this to the complete opposite: the overwhelming power of the state. In fact they are merely registering an emotional form of isolation, a lack of control in their own lives, and using the existence of layers of meaning in language, images, and other modes of communication not as proof that there is no single reality, but to convince themselves there is a hidden and overwhelming power that controls -Tony Tanner discusses some of this in his book on American literature in the 20thc, City of Words- there is a website which is full of conspiracy theory junk, some of which, of course, contains partial truths but always distorted to suit the conspiracy.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=home

The X Files owed its success to good writing, and the residual fear that people have, that if the politicians are lying it is to cover up -not something banal, but something enormous, universal and earth-shattering.

DSK wanted to come, its that simple. But a man with an erection must be the most irrational force in the universe...

[Prospero]

I'm amused to see that you assume DSK's guilt. Do you reject the possibility of entrapment? You are quite correct that conspiracy theories appeal to those without power and that the vast majoroty are utterly spurious. But not ALL are to be dismissed. The decision by the US and UK Governments to take us to war in Iraq is essentially proven - and their reasons for it fiction. The conspiracy theory that passes the test of truth become fact - and is absorbed into what we know of the world. Consider as one example the killing of Georgy Markov, the Bulgarian dissident killed on a London street when an assassin used a poisoned umbrella to stab him. This might easily have been seen as a nonsensical conspiracy theory had it failed. (An umbrella with a poison dart? Pure james Bond. But true!) Georgi Markov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Markov_umbrella.PNG" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Markov_umbrella.PNG/220px-Markov_umbrella.PNG"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/0/05/Markov_umbrella.PNG/220px-Markov_umbrella.PNG

Or the admitted plots by the CIA to eliminate Castro by - variously - an exploding cigar, a plot to discredit him by making his beard fall out or, most remarkably, a notion (never actually tried) to stage a second coming of Christ to appeal to Catholic cubans. All in the historical record. So the most astonishing can sometimes prove to be true.i

[NYBURBS]

Conspiracy theories appeal to people who feel powerless, and who ascribe this to the complete opposite: the overwhelming power of the state. In fact they are merely registering an emotional form of isolation, a lack of control in their own lives, and using the existence of layers of meaning in language, images, and other modes of communication not as proof that there is no single reality, but to convince themselves there is a hidden and overwhelming power that controls -Tony Tanner discusses some of this in his book on American literature in the 20thc, City of Words- there is a website which is full of conspiracy theory junk, some of which, of course, contains partial truths but always distorted to suit the conspiracy.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=home

The X Files owed its success to good writing, and the residual fear that people have, that if the politicians are lying it is to cover up -not something banal, but something enormous, universal and earth-shattering.

DSK wanted to come, its that simple. But a man with an erection must be the most irrational force in the universe...

I doubt that this is a conspiracy, but people do indeed engage in conspiracies for various reasons, and to cast all conspiracy theories as being without merit would be to do a disservice to the truth.

[Stavros]

Look, I dont know exactly what happened, and neither does anyone else. I also have already said there are some conspiracy theories which contain a degree of truth, but if 'the corporation' wants DSK out of the IMF and knew he was likely to seek the Socialist Party's endorsement as Presidential candidate, he was going to resign from the IMF so why push a man who is half-way out of the door?-Castro wasn't about to resign when the CIA plotted to kill him; Markov's death as I recall did not generate much of a conspiracy theory, indeed that one and the murder of Alexander Litvinenko merely exposed the incompetence in KGB and its successor agency in the way they bump people off. There is already a theory that the maid from Guinea was offered approx $1 milion to make the allegation; there are the hotel key cards which apparently have timed records which will show if DSK was really having lunch with his daughter when the incident was said to have taken place -etc etc. I see no conspiracy, but will concede if there was one. And no, I wont put money on it! Perhaps the most worrying rumour in all this, is that Gordon Brown is tipped to replace DSK; now there's a thread waiting to unravel...