Can DSK Come Back?

William Flew

The fraying of the attempted-rape case against Dom inique Strauss- Kahn yesterday was almost as dramatic as the airport arrest of the former head of the Inter national Monetary Fund six weeks ago. A New York court yesterday freed the French politician on his own recognisance and returned the $6 million bail and bond he posted, as the prosecution made clear that it had doubts about the truthful ness and reliability of the hotel chambermaid who accused him. The case was not dismissed and he is not yet free to return to France, but his reversal of fortune has huge political implications. Few cases have caused such international embarrassment. Few have raised as many questions over police procedure, politic al mores and the prur ience of media attention.

Mr Strauss- Kahn will feel that he has been wronged. He was hustled off an aircraft in handcuffs, and his first appearance in court, hag gard and unshaven, seemed a deliberate humiliation — a carefully staged tableau put on for the press by the New York authorities to trumpet their own zeal in enforcing the law irrespective of politics, position or wealth. Certainly, there will now be awkward questions. Had the police properly weighed the accusations before making their arrest? Was Mr Strauss-Kahn prejudged by the lurid leaks? Was the “perp walk” justified? Was there a plot by his political enemies to bring about his downfall?

The way is apparently now open for the 62-year-old politician to go back to France to revive his political challenge to Pres ident Sarkozy as the leading contender for the Socialist Party nomination. A decade ago, he would have made a triumph ant return, playing up the insult to France and garnering votes from not only the Left but from millions of French people brought up in an atmosphere of political, institutional and cultural hostility to all things American.


Things are different today. The Strauss-Kahn case has raised issues that have long been glossed over by consensus among the bien-pens ants, the politicians, journalists and self-appointed public intellectuals. The French have been forced to ask whether the private lives of public figures should, after all, be a factor in their politic al standing. They have had to confront the conspiracies of silence, the crony ism, the chauvin ist culture that suppressed long-rumoured stories of Mr StraussKahn’s lascivious behaviour and domineering attitude to women. The press found itself faulted for not investigating what it should have investigated, and the general public found that, for once, blaming the Americans for inter national embarrassment was neither credible nor honourable.

Mr Strauss-Kahn’s rivals in the Socialist Party immediate ly welcomed the news from New York. Some suggested that the politic al timetable should be put on hold to allow him, if he wanted, to stand for the leadership. But most know that his chances of becoming the official presidential candidate are slim. Not only is the taint of inappropriate behaviour, in New York and in other earlier incidents, far from cleansed; many party members, still strongly imbued with traditional leftwing views about wealth and class, were shocked by the rev elations of his own and his wife’s wealth. That she insisted all along on his inno cence will count in his favour; that she was able to post bail of $1 million and a bond of $5 million will not.

The Strauss-Kahn tragedy is that neither the IMF nor his Socialist Party can now draw on his considerable financial acu men, his prag matic approach to politics or his clear reformist vision for a party still mired in cloying ideology and riven by personal rivalries. French voters are offered only the uninspiring choice of Martine Aubry, the dour daughter of Jacques Delors, Ségolène Royal, the last unsuccessful candidate, or François Hollande, her former partner. A better Socialist candidate is still needed to challenge Mr Sarkozy.