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DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN

Strauss-Kahn sues media and Sarkozy aide

Disgraced ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his heiress wife are suing a top aide of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and several papers for invasion of their privacy, their lawyers said Tuesday.

Published: 23 November 2011 09:18 CET
Strauss-Kahn sues media and Sarkozy aide
WTO

Strauss-Kahn and Anne Sinclair want €100,000 ($135,000) from Le Figaro over a story speculating Sinclair was upset by reports her husband had sex parties with prostitutes, according to a writ served on the daily.

The paper also speculated that Sinclair, a celebrity television journalist and the heiress to an art fortune, might separate from her husband.

The writ, seen by AFP, said that if the case was successful, the money was to be donated to the anti-poverty charity Secours Populaire.

Similar writs will be served in the coming days to the weekly magazines L’Express, Nouvel Observateur, Paris Match and VSD, lawyer Richard Malka told AFP.

Recent articles in the French press have speculated that Strauss-Kahn was close to a nervous breakdown and had admitted to his entourage that he needed treatment for his compulsive sexual behaviour.

The couple are also planning to press charges against Sarkozy aide Henri Guaino over a television interview in which he said that in the Strauss-Kahn affair “one is in a zone where private life meets criminality”, Malka said.

Strauss-Kahn, a 62-year-old Socialist politician and former presidential hopeful, resigned from the International Monetary Fund in May after he was arrested and accused of attempting to rape a New York hotel maid.

The US case against him eventually collapsed, but he has been dogged by scandal since returning to France.

Strauss-Kahn’s name has been linked to a judicial investigation into an illegal prostitution ring operating out of luxury hotels in the northern French city of Lille and a string of Belgian brothels.

Press reports based on leaks from the investigation have said prostitutes from the Lille network were taken to Paris and Washington to entertain the then IMF director at orgies in restaurants and five star hotels.

French media have revealed text messages allegedly sent by Strauss-Kahn to a businessman detained on suspicion of organising sex parties in restaurants and swingers clubs in Paris, Washington, Madrid, Vienna and Ghent, Belgium.

Strauss-Kahn has demanded to be questioned by the judges leading the inquiry, hoping to halt what his lawyers brand a “media lynching”, but some warn he could face charges if the case expands to cover alleged graft or influence peddling.

Magistrates have already charged several leading local figures with organizing the ring and there are suspicions that a construction company executive used his firm’s money to entertain guests at sex parties.

Strauss-Kahn was once courted by dozens of senior figures, keen for a role in his expected future government, or hoping some of the glamour and energy of his jet-setting lifestyle and celebrity marriage would rub off.

Even after the shock of the US case — which collapsed after prosecutors came to doubt the testimony of the alleged victim but ended his IMF career — many stood by him, predicting an improbable comeback for their champion.

But now, with each week bringing new unseemly allegations, the small court of hangers-on who used to meet or telephone their champion at his elegant flat in Paris’s super-fashionable Place des Vosges has dispersed.

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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