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Presidential hopeful quizzed in DSK case

Top French presidential hopeful Francois Hollande turned up for questioning by detectives on Wednesday in a probe into an alleged attempted rape by his fellow Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Published: 20 July 2011 15:51 CEST
Presidential hopeful quizzed in DSK case
Kenji-Baptiste Oikawa

Hollande spoke to reporters as he arrived at police quarters, confirming he was there for questioning after publicly demanding to get his testimony over with in the case which has tainted the 2012 presidential election race.  

He reiterated that he was not implicated and wished to be questioned in order to head off political machinations linked to the case, telling reporters it is “an affair that does not concern me”.  

Hollande is one of around 10 people whom French writer Tristane Banon and her mother Anne Mansouret say they told about the alleged attempted rape of Banon in 2003. He has denied having any detailed knowledge of it.  

“I will not accept that an affair which is nothing to do with me or the Socialist Party, be manipulated for political ends,” Hollande said late Friday.  

“I ask for this to stop. That’s enough!”  

Strauss-Kahn was already facing separate attempted rape charges in New York before Banon brought her legal action. The scandal deepened Wednesday after Banon’s mother revealed she had herself previously had sex with him.  

Mansouret, an elected official in Strauss-Kahn’s Socialist party, was quoted by several French media talking of a sexual encounter with Strauss-Kahn in 2000 in an office of the OECD economic body where he worked at the time.  

Banon accuses Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in 2003 as she tried to interview him for a book. Mansouret has said she discouraged her daughter from bringing charges for fear Banon’s journalism career would suffer.  

Strauss-Kahn has dismissed the alleged attack as “imaginary”.  

He is in New York pending charges of sexually assaulting and trying to rape a hotel maid there. Prosecutors have admitted doubts about his accuser in that case, raising the prospect that the charges could be dropped.  

But that case has already derailed the electoral hopes of Strauss-Kahn, previously favourite to beat President Nicolas Sarkozy to the presidency next year. Hollande now polls as one of those most likely to win.

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ECONOMY

World unprepared for next financial crisis: ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn

The world is less well equipped to manage a major financial crisis today than it was a decade ago, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Published: 9 September 2018 14:08 CEST
World unprepared for next financial crisis: ex-IMF chief Strauss-Kahn
Former French Economy Minister and former managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn , poses during a photo session in Paris on Thursday. Photo: JOEL SAGET / AFP
In an interview with AFP, the now-disgraced Strauss-Kahn — who ran the fund at the height of the 2008 financial meltdown — also said rising populism across the world is a direct result of the crisis. 
 
Strauss-Kahn resigned as head of the IMF in 2011 after being accused of attempted rape in New York, although the charges were later dropped. He settled a subsequent civil suit, reportedly with more than $1.5 million.
 
Q: When did you become aware that a big crisis was brewing?
 
A: When I joined the IMF on Nov 1, 2007, it became clear quite quickly that things were not going well. That is why in January 2008, in Davos, I made a statement that made a bit of noise, asking for a global stimulus package worth two percent of each country's GDP. In April 2008, during the IMF's spring meetings, we released the figure of $1,000 billion that banks needed for their recapitalisation.
 
Q: Did the Bush administration grasp the danger of Lehman Brothers going bankrupt?
 
A: No, and that is why Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson decided not to save Lehman, because he wanted to make an example of it in the name of moral hazard. Like everybody else, he considerably underestimated the consequences. Allowing Lehman to go under was a serious mistake. Especially because only a week later they were forced to save the insurer AIG, which was much bigger.
 
Q: Ten years on, are we better equipped to deal with a crisis of such a magnitude?
 
A: No. We have made some progress, particularly in the area of banks' capital adequacy ratios. But that is not nearly enough. Imagine Deutsche Bank suddenly finding itself in difficulty. The eight percent of capital it has at its disposal are not going to be enough to solve the problem. The truth is that we are less well prepared now. Regulations are insufficient.
 
Q: How so?
 
A: After 2012-2013 we stopped talking about the need to regulate the economy, for example concerning the size of banks, or concerning rating agencies. We backtracked, which is why I am pessimistic about our preparedness. We have a non-thinking attitude towards globalisation and that does not yield positive results.
 
Q: Do we still have international coordination?
 
A: Coordination is mostly gone. Nobody plays that role anymore. Not the IMF and not the EU, and the United States president's policies are not helping. As a result, the mechanism that was created at the G20, which was very helpful because it involved emerging countries, has fallen apart. Ten years ago, governments accepted leaving that role to the IMF. I'm not sure it is able to play it today, but the future will tell.
 
Q: Do you believe that Donald Trump's election is a consequence of the crisis?
 
A: I believe so. I'm not saying that there was a single reason for Trump's election, but today's political situation is not unconnected to the crisis we lived through, both in the US with Trump and in Europe.
 
Q: Connected how?
 
A: One of the consequences of the crisis has been completely underestimated, in my opinion: the populism that is appearing everywhere is the direct outcome of the crisis and of the way that it was handled after 2011/2012, by favouring solutions that were going to increase inequalities.
 
Quantitative easing (by which central banks inject liquidity into the banking system) was useful and welcome. But it is a policy that is basically designed to bail out the financial system, and therefore serves the richest people on the planet.
 
When there's a fire, firemen intervene and there is water everywhere. But then you need to mop up, which we didn't do. And because this water flowed into the pockets of some, and not of everyone, there was a surge in inequality.
 
By AFP's Antonio Rodriguez