IMF chief and Sarkozy frontrunner opponent arrested

[Fire Fly]

Link

I.M.F. Chief Is Arrested and Accused of Sexual Attack

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was taken off an Air France plane at Kennedy International Airport minutes before it was to take off for Paris on Saturday and arrested in connection with the sexual attack of a maid at a Midtown Manhattan hotel, the authorities said.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, who was widely expected to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, was apprehended by detectives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the first-class section of the jetliner, and immediately turned over to detectives from the Midtown South Precinct, officials said.

The New York Police Department took Mr. Strauss-Kahn into custody, where he was “being questioned in connection with the sexual assault of a hotel chambermaid earlier this afternoon,” Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said Saturday night. “He is being arrested for a criminal sex act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.”

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said prosecutors were investigating the matter and expected to bring formal criminal charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn by early Sunday morning.

Reached by telephone, Benjamin Brafman, a lawyer, said he would be representing Mr. Strauss-Kahn with William Taylor, a lawyer in Washington.

“We have not yet been able to meet with our client and we may have more to say tomorrow,” said Mr. Brafman, who said he had been contacted late Saturday night. He said Mr. Strauss-Kahn was being housed at the police department’s Special Victims Unit.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, had been expected to declare his candidacy soon, after three and a half years as the leader of the fund, which is based in Washington. He was considered by many to have done a good job in a period of intense global economic strain, when the bank itself had become vital to the smooth running of the world and the European economy.

His apprehension came at about 4:40 p.m., when two detectives of the Port Authority suddenly boarded Air France Flight 23, as the plane idled at the departure gate, said John P. L. Kelly, a spokesman for the agency.

“It was 10 minutes before its scheduled departure,” Mr. Kelly said. “They were just about to close the doors.”

Mr. Kelly said that Mr. Strauss-Kahn was traveling alone and that he was not handcuffed during the apprehension.

“He complied with the detectives’ directions,” Mr. Kelly said.

The Port Authority officers were acting on information from the Police Department, whose detectives had been investigating the assault of a female employee of Sofitel New York, at 45 West 44th Street, near Times Square. Working quickly, the city detectives learned he had boarded a flight at Kennedy Airport to leave the country.

Though Mr. Strauss-Kahn received generally high marks for his stewardship of the bank, his reputation was tarnished in 2008 by an affair with a Hungarian economist who was a subordinate there. The fund decided to stand by him despite concluding that he had shown poor judgment in the affair. Mr. Strauss-Kahn issued an apology to employees at the bank and his wife, Anne Sinclair, an American-born French journalist.

In his statement then, Mr. Strauss-Kahn said, “I am grateful that the board has confirmed that there was no abuse of authority on my part, but I accept that this incident represents a serious error of judgment.” The economist, Piroska Nagy, left the fund as part of a buyout of nearly 600 employees instituted by Mr. Strauss-Kahn to cut costs.

In the New York case, Mr. Browne said that it was about 1 p.m. on Saturday when the maid, a 32-year-old woman, entered Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s suite — Room 2806 — believing it was unoccupied. Mr. Browne said that the suite, which cost $3,000 a night, had a foyer, a conference room, a living room and a bedroom, and that Mr. Strauss-Khan had checked in on Friday.

As she was in the foyer, “he came out of the bathroom, fully naked, and attempted to sexually assault her,” Mr. Browne said, adding, “He grabs her, according to her account, and pulls her into the bedroom and onto the bed.” He locked the door to the suite, Mr. Browne said.

“She fights him off, and he then drags her down the hallway to the bathroom, where he sexually assaults her a second time,” Mr. Browne added.

At some point during the assault, the woman broke free, Mr. Browne said, and “she fled, reported it to other hotel personnel, who called 911.” He added, “When the police arrived, he was not there.” Mr. Browne said Mr. Strauss-Kahn appeared to have left in a hurry. In the room, investigators found his cellphone, which he had left behind, and one law enforcement official said that the investigation uncovered forensic evidence that would contain DNA.

Mr. Browne added, “We learned that he was on an Air France plane,” and the plane was held at the gate, where Mr. Strauss-Kahn was taken into custody. Later Saturday night, Mr. Browne said Mr. Strauss-Kahn was in a police holding cell.

Mr. Browne said the city’s Emergency Medical Service took the maid to Roosevelt Hospital for what Mr. Browne described as treatment for “minor injuries.”

No matter the outcome of Saturday’s episode, it will most likely throw the French political world into turmoil and the Socialist Party into an embarrassed confusion.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a leading member of the party, has been considered the front-runner for the next presidential election in France in May 2012. Opinion polls have shown him to be the Socialists’ most popular candidate and running well ahead of the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, who leads the center-right party.

France has been waiting for Mr. Strauss-Kahn to decide whether to run for his party’s nomination in a series of primaries, which would mean giving up his post at the fund.

The view in France was that if Mr. Strauss-Kahn wanted to run, he would have to make his intentions clear early this summer, and most politicians and analysts have been predicting that he would not be able to resist the chance to run the country.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn contested for the nomination five years ago, losing to Ségolène Royal, who ultimately lost a second-round runoff to Mr. Sarkozy. Mr. Sarkozy then arranged for Mr. Strauss-Kahn to get the I.M.F. job, partly to remove a popular rival from France’s political landscape.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn was the French minister of economy under the Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, from 1997 to 1999, and he has also been a professor of economics at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

In 1995, he was elected mayor of Sarcelles, a poor suburb of Paris, and married Ms. Sinclair.

The couple are known to enjoy the finer things in life, and Mr. Strauss-Kahn has sometimes been attacked for being a “caviar leftist.”

Recently Mr. Strauss-Kahn and his wife were photographed entering an expensive Porsche in Paris belonging to one of their friends. The image of a Socialist with Porsche tastes was quickly picked up by the news media, especially the newspapers that generally support Mr. Sarkozy.

William K. Rashbaum and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.

And according to a New York Post article, Strauss-Kahn left his cellphone and other personal items in the room, the implication being that he left in a hurry to flee the country. If these allegations prove true, they're rather incredible. I think Strauss-Kahn was polling fairly high in France and with Sarkozy's poor numbers, Strauss-Kahn might have had a decent chance of winning the 2012 French presidential election. This probably leaves Francois Hollande as the likely candidate for the Socialist Party, although from what some of my French friends say, he is somewhat of a weak leader and acts, as they told me, "retarded."

[K. A. Pital]

Not sure if that's true or not, but the IMF... Let me say this: it takes a special type of callous shithead to lead an institution so deeply involved with economic fuck-ups like the IMF. This guy is a fucking shame for the left, and it's best to keep him as far away from politics as possible. I'm not sure who is okay in the French Socialist (more like "Broad Left") party. I used to like Segolene, she was is hot.

[Mr. Coffee]

Weird. That makes two people named "Dominique" that aren't strippers. And it's a guy no less.

Mind = Blown Like ears are bleeding, yo.

[Fire Fly]

Not sure if that's true or not, but the IMF... Let me say this: it takes a special type of callous shithead to lead an institution so deeply involved with economic fuck-ups like the IMF. This guy is a fucking shame for the left, and it's best to keep him as far away from politics as possible. I'm not sure who is okay in the French Socialist (more like "Broad Left") party. I used to like Segolene, she was is hot.

From my understanding, the big names in the Parti Socialiste are Ségolène Royal, Martine Aubry, François Hollande, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Ségolène Royal hasn't really been able to make a strong come back since her defeat to Sarkozy and she hasn't been very politically visible lately. Martine Aubry is more on the left wing of the Socialist Party and she might not appeal to the French political center. François Hollande is really the only candidate that is really campaigning currently. I think he's more centrist than the previous two names but his views are not very clear since I think he tends to stick in the background more. Strauss-Kahn was seen as the natural candidate since he had a high international profile, didn't get dirtied by domestic politics, and is more centrist. Due to how the French primary election is held, where anyone can vote, this latest scandal will make guessing who on the left will emerge more difficult, I think. I'm sure the other French members of the board can provide a better analysis.

[Narkis]

Wait, the boss of the fucking IMF is a fucking socialist? Haha, that's priceless. Who's hardcore enough to be considered a liberal then?

And incredibly, this made it to the local news. Dom's notorious here as one of the architects of our recent worries (as a member of the infamous "Troika"), and no one could resist this chance to ridicule him.

[Simon_Jester]

I think there's a lesson here- a man who will rape the maid isn't someone I'd want to trust not to rape countries, or the other way round.

[Eframepilot]

Sarkozy must be thrilled. Could he actually be re-elected after all?

[K. A. Pital]

I know Royal somewhat distanced from presidential campaign stuff, but that's understandable. If I would be looking like this:

And my opponent like this:

And I lost the elections, I'd fucking laugh and say "screw that". That's not mentioning the fact Sarko has been an utter jerk in his office, from corruption to his attitude towards the French and everyone else. I don't think Sarko can get reelected anyway, his standoff with the unions should've ruined his reputation. I hope so.

That aside, the French Socialists have lost my trust as well; and the more radical French left seems to be gaining ground at their expense. Losing against a candidate like Sarko can only be described as epic fail.

[Fire Fly]

I guess being head of the IMF does not give you diplomatic immunity.

So today's lesson: Attempted rape of one hotel maid is a crime. Raping ten million Greeks is just part of the job.

[Rabid]

[To correct what someone said before : the party of Sarkozy, the UMP (Union for a Popular Movement), in France, isn't seen as a Center-Right party, but as Right-wing party ; and is currently having a schism between the Centrist and the Right-wingers (Sarkozy and his partisans are Right-wingers)]


To show some lights on how this will change the landscape of the Presidential Campaign.

First, the presidential election goes as follow :

- Each Party appoint a candidate. Then, each candidate to the Election has to see his/her candidature approved by at least 500 mayors (As we have something like 36 000 of them, this isn't generally a hard thing to get). When the candidates have at least 500 "signatures", they can officially run for the presidency.
- Then, every candidates are confronted to each another in the first turn of the presidential election. If someone gets more than 50% of the votes, he/she is elected right off the bat (this has never occurred during the 5th Republic). If no one has more than 50% of the votes, the two candidates with the more votes in their favor pass to the second turn.
- In the second turn, the candidate who gather the more votes in his/her favor gain the election and is appointed "President of the French Republic".


So, here, the problem is at the stage "appointment of the candidate". The French Socialist Party (PS), because it suffer from never-endings internal struggles, has made the choice to choose its own candidate with a Primary Election. What happen there is that now Strauss-Kahn is de facto removed from the equation, leaving only Royal, Martine Aubry, François Hollande, and a handful of other minor figures to fight in the arena.

- Ségolène Royal : has already lost an election. Seen by many, including PS supporters, as lacking a real vision, and to be, generally speaking, a "cruche" (french insult meaning that someone has figuratively more water than meat in his/her head - preferentially used against women).
- François Hollande : This man has no backbone. He is a buffoon. One of his surname is "the cheese", because he always seems so flabby. As a PS candidate in the presidential election, baring a miracle in his favor, he has approximately 0% chance of winning - but 100% of whinning. Ex-husband of Ségolène Royal (they separated before the last presidential election)
- Martine Aubry : She has an alliance with Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) : if one of the pair can't run has a candidate in the Primary, the other will take its place. She is seen has austere but competent, and her ideas are on the left (or at least on the left of a great part of her colleagues in the PS - which is now a center/center-left party). I think it is her who will win the Primary.


As far as I'm concerned, I think it is a good thing that DSK is now out of the race for the presidential elections, because everytime he was in power, the choices he made was those of a Right-winger (well, the French Right, so the US Center-Left, but still...). He wasn't the good man for the Socialist Party, and even less for France : he could have won, but his politic afterward would have been an utter disaster for the country.

[Coop D'etat]

I know Royal somewhat distanced from presidential campaign stuff, but that's understandable. If I would be looking like this:
And my opponent like this:
And I lost the elections, I'd fucking laugh and say "screw that". That's not mentioning the fact Sarko has been an utter jerk in his office, from corruption to his attitude towards the French and everyone else. I don't think Sarko can get reelected anyway, his standoff with the unions should've ruined his reputation. I hope so.

That aside, the French Socialists have lost my trust as well; and the more radical French left seems to be gaining ground at their expense. Losing against a candidate like Sarko can only be described as epic fail.

I seem to remember that Ms Royal ran a poor, gaffe ridden campaign. I know she made headlines here for publically supporting Quebec succession. Which pissed off a lot of Canadians for a percieved interference in an internal matter of a fellow liberal democratic state and ally. Not to mention it brought back nasty memories for its resemblence of how de Gaulle made an ass out of himself in Montreal in 1967.

[Zaune]

Isn't one of those women also related to that Le Pen guy? That's also probably not a terribly healthy thing for one's election prospects. Though this is of course the country that attempted to mass-deport a few tens of thousands of Romany gypsies for no particularly good reason...

[Teebs]

Isn't one of those women also related to that Le Pen guy? That's also probably not a terribly healthy thing for one's election prospects. Though this is of course the country that attempted to mass-deport a few tens of thousands of Romany gypsies for no particularly good reason...

You're thinking of Marine Le Pen. She is the leader of the National Front, so no, being Jean-Marie's daughter is not going to hurt her chances of being her party's presidential candidate.

DSK being ejected from the race could have interesting consequences. Mostly notably it makes it quite likely that France's next president will be female. As Rabid pointed out the most likely candidate for the PS (Socialist Party) is now Martine Aubry.

At the moment it's looking like Marine Le Pen has a decent chance of beating Sarkozy into third place (as her father did with Lionel Jospin in 2002). If that happens then it will probably be two women duking it out for the presidency in the second round (and in the second round the National Front candidate would lose horribly). Even if Marine doesn't beat Sarkozy, he really is very unpopular so there's a good chance he'd still lose in the second round to Aubry.

[Zaune]

I was kind of hoping that just being leader of the National Front was enough to make one a long-shot candidate for President of France, actually, but thanks for the clarification.

[Teebs]

I was kind of hoping that just being leader of the National Front was enough to make one a long-shot candidate for President of France, actually, but thanks for the clarification.

Oh it is. The problem is the National Front can rely on 15-20% of the vote. In the first round of the presidential election this can be enough to just barely come second because the main party candidates' vote splits all over the place. The thing is that that percentage would barely increase in the second round, leading to a huge defeat because almost everyone who isn't already voting National Front simply isn't going to. So Le Pen appears to have a better chance than she does because of the quirks of the French electoral system.

[wautd]

Wait, the boss of the fucking IMF is a fucking socialist?

Well, where I live, we would call him a kaviar socialist.

[Zed]

Personally, I'd call him a figure of the rational, internationalist, financially-literate, centre-left politics that France and Europe needs, as Gideon Rachman put it.

[Zed]

It seems there are other voices coming forth to accuse DSK. It's unfortunate for the policies he represented, but it looks like the man's guilty.

[wautd]

It seems there are other voices coming forth to accuse DSK. It's unfortunate for the policies he represented, but it looks like the man's guilty.

Yeah, I bet there are a lot of skeletons in his closet just waiting to come out. Like the french writer Tristane Banon

[wautd]

So in the mean time he admitted having sex with her, albeit that she wanted is as well. True or not, we'll have to see.

It also turns out it's possible that the maid has aids. In case he raped her, it would be a rather ironic punishment if he got contaminated with HIV as well.
I cannot sympathise with a person that spends 3000$ per day on hotel rooms with other peoples money, while urging whole countries to save money, but it's not something I'd wish for someone if he turns out to be innocent.

[Stravo]

NYOne reported this morning that he is on suicide watch.

[blahface]

So in the mean time he admitted having sex with her, albeit that she wanted is as well. True or not, we'll have to see.

It also turns out it's possible that the maid has aids. In case he raped her, it would be a rather ironic punishment if he got contaminated with HIV as well.
I cannot sympathise with a person that spends 3000$ per day on hotel rooms with other peoples money, while urging whole countries to save money, but it's not something I'd wish for someone if he turns out to be innocent.

A lot of information that initially came out about this is false. First, he spend $500 on the hotel room and it was with his own money. Second, he wasn't in a hurry when he left. He planned the flight way in advance and when he found out his phone was missing, he called the hotel and asked them to bring it to the airport for him.

About the French election, does anyone who follows it know what the odds are that François Bayrou will make it to the runoff?

[Teebs]

About the French election, does anyone who follows it know what the odds are that François Bayrou will make it to the runoff?

He seems to be polling at below 10% compared to his 18.5% in the last election which would suggest a no. It's possible that election time will give him more publicity and therefore a popularity boosy, but I suspect the media focus will be much more on the National Front's chances.

[Phantasee]

I found this to be very interesting:

Why the image of DSK in cuffs shocks France

By Benedict Brogan Last updated: May 17th, 2011

Further to Con Coughlin’s telling post about Dominique Strauss-Kahn forced to do the ‘perp walk’, it’s worth noting why the images of DSK in cuffs are causing such consternation in France. First, there’s the obvious enormity of seeing the main rival to Nicolas Sarkozy brought low in spectacular style. Second, there’s the cultural shock of seeing a wealthy member of the ruling elite, who was thought to enjoy what the French media often refer to as impunity, put in a position that would be unthinkable in France. The impact on how France thinks about its leaders will be long-lasting. Third, there’s a very specific legal reason to explain why commentators such as Agnes Poirier on Newsnight described the image as ‘violent’. Since 2000 it has in fact been illegal to show suspects in detention when they have yet to be charged let alone convicted. The loi Guigou sur la présomption d’innocence was in part designed to protect the dignity of the accused. As Richard Malka a French expert in media law explained, the media’s right to information does not mean right to humiliation. Technically, Mr Strauss-Kahn could sue French media outlets for using the pictures, but given that he’s been sent to Rikers Island, he’s got other poissons a frire.

The article in the National Post, from The Daily Telegraph, says "France's Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) […] cited a law passed in 2000 that prohibits showing a charged person in court in handcuffs, to ensure the presumption of innocence. The maximum fine is about $21,700."

Can anyone familiar with this law comment on it? It seems like a good idea, to me. I wonder sometimes about the impact of things like Nancy Grace's show on the presumption of innocence.

[Rabid]

About the French election, does anyone who follows it know what the odds are that François Bayrou will make it to the runoff?

François Bayrou is a wimp, his vision of what is the "Center" is mocked by all his fellow "Centrist" in the Assembly (who have by now joined either the UMP or created their own parties, plural), and he has single-handedly managed to scuttle the UDF and thus reduced the number of deputy from the Center in the National Assembly from more than a hundred to only two or three.

His status as a potential president, which was never really high to begin with (and by that I mean that only his followers, which were few, believed in it ; the journalists only playing on it to sell paper), is now almost null.


TL;DR : No fucking way.

Can anyone familiar with this law comment on it? It seems like a good idea, to me. I wonder sometimes about the impact of things like Nancy Grace's show on the presumption of innocence.

Basically, the law here say that as long as you haven't be shown to be guilty, you are to be treated as innocent.

Thus, tautology time, you can't be treated as being guilty before being judged guilty. This mean (between other things that I have no precise knowledge of) that he can't be shown in public as being restrained (no handcuffs, no police "bodyguards" holding him by the shoulders, etc...).

But we have an advantage other the American, in that as far as I know we don't have public jury in criminal court : all is decided by the Judge(s), as Arbiter(s) of the Law. And they aren't elected either, but appointed. So, theoretically, the risk for us to commit trial error because the public opinion is against the accused is far below what they would be in the US.

But DSK is currently being judged in the US, for a crime supposedly committed in the US, so at this point I'd say he is fucked.