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DSK back in France after New York sex scandal

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, his hopes for the French presidency scuppered by a sensational New York sex scandal, returned to Paris on Sunday to a media frenzy and an uneasy welcome from his Socialist allies.

Published: 5 September 2011 09:35 CEST
DSK back in France after New York sex scandal
Guillaume Paumier (File)

The former IMF chief and his journalist wife Anne Sinclair arrived at dawn at Charles de Gaulle airport on an Air France flight and were whisked off in a black Peugeot to their apartment in the chic Place des Vosges.  

They smiled and waved but said nothing to the horde of journalists and handful of supporters awaiting their arrival at the airport and again declined to comment when mobbed by media as they reached their home in the Marais area of Paris.  

Strauss-Kahn has promised to talk about what he has called his “terrible and unjust ordeal.”  

“Today it’s family, family, family,” a close associate of the former IMF chief told AFP, adding that he would later prepare “a strong message” for broadcast.  

Michelle Sabban, a senior figure in the Socialist Party in the Paris region, said Strauss-Kahn would not just disappear into the political shadows.  

“The rehabilitation must be as big as the humiliation suffered,” he said.  

Strauss-Kahn, dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, boarded a flight at New York’s JFK airport late on Saturday, less than two weeks after sexual assault charges against him were dropped.  

Three and a half months ago police hauled the Socialist politician off a plane that was about to leave for Paris from the same airport and charged him with the sexual assault and attempted rape of the hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo. 

The 62-year-old spent nearly a week in jail and was then put under house arrest for six weeks and barred from leaving the United States. He was also forced to resign as the International Monetary Fund’s managing director.  

But late last month he walked free when a judge dismissed the charges against him after prosecutors said they could not pursue the case because of his accuser’s lack of credibility.  

Prosecutors said she had been caught lying on her asylum application form, including about a gang rape she had suffered in her native Guinea.  

DNA evidence indicated that a sexual encounter did occur between the two in the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan, but Strauss-Kahn’s defence team insists that it was consensual.  

The ex-IMF chief’s legal travails are however far from over.  

Diallo is pursuing a civil suit against him, seeking unspecified damages, while in France, 32-year-old novelist Tristane Banon has filed a complaint alleging he tried to rape her after luring her to a Paris flat in 2003.  

He has said he will sue Banon for defamation, alleging she invented the story to help publicise her writing.  

Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret  said on Sunday that the media storm surrounding Strauss-Kahn’s homecoming was “indecent”.  

Chantal Brunel, the head of France’s national watchdog on sexual equality, said Strauss-Kahn would remain “an indelible stain on the Socialist party”.  

The return of Strauss-Kahn — who before the sex scandal was tipped as a possible favorite to win the presidential election — has sparked unease in his party which is holding a primary to pick a candidate for the 2012 vote.  

Party heavyweights have welcomed the withdrawal of charges against him, but many have sought to distance themselves from him.  

Socialist leader Martine Aubry said on Tuesday she had always insisted that Strauss-Kahn, who was a finance minister in a previous Socialist government in France, benefit from the presumption of innocence.  

But she notably added: “I think the same as many women about the attitude of Dominique Strauss-Kahn to women.”  

Michel Rocard, a Socialist former prime minister, went even further in calling his character into question, saying that the former IMF boss suffered from a “mental illness” and could not control his urges around women.  

Rocard later apologised for the statement.  

Strauss-Kahn has not stated what his plans are once back in Paris but many commentators expect him to have some sort of role in next year’s election campaign.  

Sarkozy is languishing in opinion polls and the French economy is flatlining, so whichever Socialist emerges from the primary ought to be in with a chance.  

But the party has been left in disarray by the spectacular burnout of its former hero Strauss-Kahn.

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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