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Letter From Paris
Strauss-Kahn’s Troubling Return
A man may smile and smile…
At first, France’s Socialist Party leaders made a good show of being beside themselves with joy on August 23. A careful, timorous Cyrus Vance, Jr., had finally decided that, however Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s semen came to be splattered all over his hotel room and the chambermaid come to clean it, he might not be able to convince a jury of the seven counts of sexual assault charged against him. As soon as the tremors subsided from an eerily-timed earthquake in New York City — a sign of Divine displeasure? — DSK declared his relief at “the end of a terrible and unfair trauma,” collected his passport, and made ready to return to France.
First though, he went to Washington to apologize to International Monetary Fund staff for what had been merely “a mistake on my part” that had reflected poorly on the institution he had run for four years. His audience was becoming used to such apologies: three years previously, after seducing a Hungarian IMF economist, he had presented his excuses for “a serious error of judgment.”
In France, one national newspaper assured anxious readers that their compulsively amorous compatriot “intends to leave the United States with his head held high.” It was a time for rejoicing and press releases. “We were all waiting for this… for him to finally get out of this nightmare,” declared Martine Aubry, Socialist Party chief and candidate for its nomination in the October primary ahead of next April’s presidential ballot. “It’s pure happiness, an immense relief.” Sure she was that “Dominique will be useful to France in some way, his native land to which he is so attached.”
Not to be outdone, François Hollande, the party’s current frontrunner for the nomination, professed himself delighted to see the end of “an intolerable ordeal.… Whatever they say about him, a man of his abilities can be useful to his country in the months and years to come.” Another excited socialist proclaimed, “France needs a man like DSK! Europe needs a man like him!” Everywhere the word blanchi (given a clean slate) was bandied about, falsely implying that he had been declared innocent by a New York court.
In the traditionally leftist Paris suburb of Sarcelles, DSK’s longtime political base as Socialist Party mayor and representative in the National Assembly, a fan club of 3,600 eager dupes started planning a big street party, maybe even a rock concert to welcome him back. After all, the last time Strauss-Kahn was in France, at Easter, he was adulated as a sure thing to become France’s president next year.
But what about the shameful handcuffed perp walk, doing time at Riker’s Island, the hasty, embarrassing IMF resignation? Even for the notoriously, nay, defiantly, broad-minded French, wasn’t he a bit much? A guy who admittedly had quickie if not forced sex with a hotel cleaning lady before going to lunch with his daughter and flying back to his wife? Dismissed with the wave of a baguette by many of the faithful who buy the conspiracy theories going around.
“He was set up, Monsieur,” says one shrewd citizen of Sarcelles with a knowing wink. “He’s a millionaire. If he wanted a woman, he could have thousands of beautiful women.” Besides, it was well known that America has a problem with sex. “It comes from its Protestant legacy,” explained a fatuous op-ed columnist in the leftist Le Monde. “It’s a two-faced Puritanism that co-exists with a thriving porn industry. Americans licked their lips over every intimate detail of this case.”
But with the presidential election only eight months off, prominent socialists began sniffing the air and concluded that DSK’s imminent return to France meant trouble for the party in general and them in particular.
The French had had over three months to reflect on who he really was. The womanizing, of course — the Paris swingers’ club where he was an habitué, being caught by police with a prostitute in a parked car in the Bois de Boulogne, the string of women coming forth with stories of his rough handling during brief affairs, and now this Sofitel sordidness. Maybe even worse in a country where money is more taboo than sex was the flaunted wealth of his heiress wife, with his un-socialist taste for expensive suits, $600 spaghetti dinners in New York, the $50,000 a month town house, assorted residences in Paris and Marrakesh. Polls showed public opinion had swung 180 degrees, with up to two-thirds of voters now saying they didn’t want him as president after all.
His closest socialist allies began throwing their support to other candidates for the nomination. Frontrunners discreetly distanced themselves. One contender demanded that DSK apologize to the French the way he did to the IMF staff in Washington. Michel Rocard, a former prime minister and now party elder, said bluntly that Strauss-Kahn had a mental illness that made him incapable of “mastering his impulses.” Party Chief Martine Aubry, her eye on the female vote, suddenly disapproved of his attitude toward women. He had become politically toxic.
The street party and concert were off, but that didn’t keep DSK’s arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport early Sunday morning from being a rowdy media circus worthy of the Second Coming. Dozens of harried gendarmes tried to corral the frenzied posse of photographers and cameramen, while a handful of well-wishers shouted “He’s here!” “Courage!” “We love you!” Obviously coached by his wife Anne Sinclair, a former TV journalist, and a female media adviser never more than a few steps away, Strauss-Kahn pushed his own baggage cart, a fixed smile on his face. The goal was to look like any relaxed returning vacationer — just your regular happy couple back from a trip abroad. Pas de problème!
The fixed, cat-ate-the-canary smile was still there when they reached the entrance to their upscale apartment on the arcaded, 17th century Place des Vosges. Beaming, hands casually in pockets, pirouetting jauntily back and forth under the fusillade of flashes, he spent several minutes basking in the warmth of the media sun, pointing playfully to friends, exchanging comments of complicity with Sinclair but making none to the press. The ever-present media adviser says he will speak publicly, likely during a prime-time interview, within the next fortnight. Whenever, he’d better give a compelling, confessional version of what happened in that hotel room.
No matter how ingratiating his stage smiles or convincing his eventual TV appearance, he will continue to be dogged for months to come by legal troubles. This week he is expected to be summoned to answer the accusations by Tristane Banon, the 32-year-old writer suing him for allegedly jumping her like a “rutting chimpanzee” during an interview in 2003. And besides Nafissatou Diallo’s civil suit against him in New York, her lawyers have opened a second front in France, accusing Strauss-Kahn’s Paris allies of witness tampering to keep a French woman from talking about a clandestine affair in 1997 that led her to attempt suicide.
One satirical cartoon this week has Anne Sinclair telling DSK, “After all, it’s not long until 2017 [the next presidential election]…if you can just behave yourself.” If this were anywhere but France, where they voted for 14 years of François Mitterrand, the possibility of a political future for him would be ludicrous. But socialist bigwigs are already talking about a ministerial post for him if they win next spring’s elections. At least neither they nor anyone else in his right mind sees him as a future president. As a French friend told me the other day with heartfelt gratitude, “This makes twice that you Americans have saved us.”
About the Author
Joseph A. Harriss is The American Spectator’s Paris correspondent. His latest book, An American Spectator in Paris, was released this fall.
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 9.7.11 @ 6:22AM
Your article indicates that the French have the same ethics as the American public based on the fact that Clinton was purified and was back in action right after his peccadillo. In fact, Clinton did commit a crime by lying to a Grand Jury. As of yet, there has been no crime on DSK's part.
In that sense the American public appears to be full of gullible idiots.
Appleby| 9.7.11 @ 7:14AM
Nobody expected any other outcome. Powerful wealthy men are different from you and me -- even hockey and football players circulate in and out of situations that would send peasants to prison and disgrace (Hello Michael Vick) with no lasting effect.
Kilgore Trout| 9.7.11 @ 4:06PM
K'rect me if I'm wrong but, Vick WENT to prison AND lost several million bucks. Now, if it were up ta me, he'd still be there but he DID go.
JAWilson| 9.7.11 @ 7:24AM
Four other men left something behind in the room as well as DSK. It might seem that the hotel is known for their service and that the case was far from clear on that basis. In either event, DSK does have a problem with self-control. So sad.
henry| 9.7.11 @ 8:29AM
He "intends to leave the United States with his head held high". Whih head would that be?
Disgusting little prick!
Edward White| 9.7.11 @ 9:23AM
A well-written, perceptive piece on DSK, Harriss.
DSK is truly a twisted piece of work. Knowing his past relationships with women makes it quite plausable that he raped the maid at Sofitel.
Mort27| 9.7.11 @ 8:58AM
The author of this article left all pretenses of objectivity behind and dashed forward describing events in sarcastic tone of derision and ridicule. "How the mighty have fallen!” How I am enjoying it! Mr. Joseph A. Harriss is obviously one of the vultures who makes fun of France and its citizens while living there and makes a living out of it in the process. A decent person can feel nothing but disgust toward this mockery of someone’s life being destroyed.
RT| 9.7.11 @ 9:08AM
More like a decent person can feel nothing but disgust toward DSK/LMNOP's serial philandering. As Ann Coulter wrote in the wake of the Duke lacrosse episode, "Lie down with stippers; wake up with pleas."
Mort27| 9.7.11 @ 11:30AM
DSK is no rapist.
The number of sexual encounters he had and his sexual preferences are none of anyone’s business. His and his wife’s private life should not be discussed publicly. It has nothing to do with his political aspirations.
Lots of accusers will crawl out of the woodwork in hope to score some money. They are just vultures that are looking for a prey, or haters who are kicking someone who is down out of purely sadistic inclinations.
Kilgore Trout| 9.7.11 @ 4:10PM
Mort probably luvs the rat-like, child rapist, Roman Polanski, too.
Mort27| 9.8.11 @ 1:58PM
We encourage readers to share and discuss their thoughtful and relevant comments about this Spectator article. Comments are routinely monitored and will be deleted if profane, bigoted, or grossly impolite. Please be respectful. (And don't feed the trolls!) Thank you.
RT| 9.7.11 @ 11:50PM
In a free country I'm quite entitled to feel disgust towards whom I please, thank you very much.
If, as you say, we aren't entitled to judge Dee asS jacK for his behavior than neither should you judge the chamber maid for her's. That would be, you know, judgemental, and stuff.
Mort 27| 9.8.11 @ 10:35AM
Lacking in masculinity department or just being impotent could make someone jealous of people who have a sex drive.
jean-marc| 9.7.11 @ 9:16AM
"mockery of someone’s life being destroyed."
The lives that have been destroyed are those of Diallo and of her daughter.
Sinclair and Strauss-Kahn paid their combined defense team to launch an unfounded slander campaign against Diallo, depicting her as a prostitute without any proof.
Read all the articles, all the comments, those lies will never be washed away.
I am french and would have liked him to stay out of France. I do not want to hear his speeches, with every word crafted by his communications experts to recreate the image created by 20 years of expensive promotion.
This agressive defense was far worse as a crime than the non proved rape.
Mort27| 9.7.11 @ 11:23AM
Diallo is keeping her job as the best employee of the year of bordello Sofitel.
There were traces not only of DSK's semen but of three other, unidentified, men as well in the hotel room. How about that for hygiene in a $US 3 000 a night luxury suite? Exemplary hotel maid Nafi did not clean very well after all.
You approve of lying as modus operandi of potential immigrants. End justifies the means in your opinion. It casts dark shadows on honest legal immigrants who do not need to obtain an entrance visa on false pretences and on the government agencies that admit them.
“Aggressive defense was far worse as a crime than the non proved rape” is the statement that shows you would not mind going to prison based on the accusations of a liar.
jean-marc| 9.8.11 @ 12:16PM
@Mort27
'Mort' from the neck down as well?
Mort27| 9.8.11 @ 1:59PM
N.B. We encourage readers to share and discuss their thoughtful and relevant comments about this Spectator article. Comments are routinely monitored and will be deleted if profane, bigoted, or grossly impolite. Please be respectful. (And don't feed the trolls!) Thank you.
marie-france| 9.7.11 @ 7:40PM
C'est exact, cher Jean-Marc, et ce que les imbeciles dans la presse ne veulent pas savoir, est que cet horreur de socialo-pervers n'est pas francais, ne represente pas la France.
Mort27| 9.8.11 @ 10:52AM
Were you a willing participant in the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup that was aimed at reducing the Jewish population in France?
loulou| 9.7.11 @ 9:28AM
This "maid" is a con artist who thought she won the jackpot. Too bad there were multiple DNA samples out of that room.
What kind of maid goes into an occupied room?
Don't worry about Diallo--she'll find another stupid man who doesn't know how to keep his zipper zipped. Kind of like Bill Clinton.
Pat| 9.7.11 @ 1:18PM
Loulou: good insight because this story had no clear good guys and bad guys. At first, DSK was the designated bad guy, he had a “history” of attempted rape, the hotel maid was initially portrayed as someone on sabbatical from the local convent and we Americans had good reasons to feel morally superior to this dirty Frenchman. But then we found out the maid had a “history” of her own, she is an accomplished liar, a cheap hustler and perhaps engaged in a work-study program sponsored by a local brothel. Two bad guys but no good guy to root for – what a shame because Americans yearn to identify with the good guy. The prosecutor, the police, the French media – all bit players who performed their minor roles well but left us unsatisfied at the story’s conclusion - no Oscars will be awarded here.
This author, Joseph Harris, has no insights of his own to offer us either, he simply repeats words others have repeated before him. Following this unfolding story, we were supposed to measure our personal flaws against one of the two main characters and feel good about ourselves once the measuring was done, but even that minor pleasure was denied us. Instead, we’re left confused as to what to feel. Do we root for DSK or stand squarely behind the maid? Do we apologize to the French for our tendency to condemn first and investigate later?
You’d think we’d have learned something because our most famous former president performed a similar role for which he won an Oscar for best actor, best director and best screenwriter. His long suffering wife was subsequently awarded a high government position for which she had absolutely no qualifications by a current president who has absolutely no qualifications for his job other than being a mixed race Liberal politician who seemed like the perfect candidate at the time.
Everyone has human weaknesses but western democracies seem to have sown a bumper crop of disgusting, greedy, morally corrupt government employees who we fervently hope won’t be dropping by our homes for dinner next Sunday. Makes you wonder if us First World sophisticates actually grasp the concepts of self-government.
Dan Hirsch| 9.7.11 @ 9:41AM
"As a French friend told me the other day with heartfelt gratitude, "This makes twice that you Americans have saved us.""
Twice, Frenchy, only twice? Got math issues?
Come on, Joe, you can't miss opportunities like that!
Anthony| 9.7.11 @ 9:44AM
Cy Vance Jr. did his job well as a D hack and apologist for the left. The acorn didn't fall far from the tree. See no evil, hear no evil, speak of no evil, when a leftist is accused.
Suddenly the victim had "credibility issues", even with DSK's semen all over her. If only Patrick Fitzgerald was as timorous and concerned about the credibility of the slippery liar Tim Russert, but Fitzy knew the D.C. jury would love the liar, so full speed ahead. Lying witness: check. Kangaroo court: check. Bush hating jury: check. Mission accomplished.
Apppleby is right, many of us saw this outcome coming a mile away. We could smell the stench from our computers.
I only hope the poor woman got more than the few goats DSK's henchmen were origionally offering her people back in Africa.
Gee, if her credibility was so bad, why did they keep her secreted away from DSK's henchmen in the first place?
Maybe Ben Stein will tell us in his next exciting diary entry how his hero escaped the clutches of the evil N.Y. justice system.
Robert Pinkerton| 9.7.11 @ 12:39PM
It is far too early to count Mr. Strauss-Kahn out of French politics. It is by no means too early to predict that, henceforthn his remaining political career will be marked by considerable gut-personal animus against this country.
Gary| 9.7.11 @ 1:16PM
Having read history extensively I have little use for the French, even their "cuisine" which seems to be tiny portions of mollusks or poultry adorned with non edible decor. They also have a propensity in modern and ancient times to lose to their enemies in humiliating fashion. Despite this they have egos unparalleled on earth. This DSK person personifies to a T the French ethos.
shipley130| 9.7.11 @ 4:33PM
The world is a little slimier, due to both parties.
Occam's Tool| 9.7.11 @ 5:06PM
Frenchies: Not Twice---Quattro---WWI, WWII, Vietnam, and now, DSK.
Occam's Tool| 9.7.11 @ 5:06PM
The French don't need to go to rehab, they said no, no, no...
Jesse| 9.8.11 @ 5:50AM
He "intends to leave the United States with his head held high". Whih head would that be?
Disgusting little prick!
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Jesse| 9.8.11 @ 5:58AM
His long suffering wife was subsequently awarded a high government position for which she had absolutely no qualifications by a current president who has absolutely no qualifications for his job other than being a mixed race Liberal politician who seemed like the perfect candidate at the time.
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