DSK down and out

Dominique Strauss-Kahn has admitted on French television that his liaison with a chambermaid in New York was 'une faute morale', and that he will not be able to challenge for the Presidency.

Presumably he will have done some private polling and concluded that what with a few other little 'fautes' pursuing him, even the tolerant French electorate will not put up with it all. He will be 68 at the time of the next election and that is probably too old.

DSK's big advantage, of course, was that he wasn't Nicolas Sarkozy. But strangely, his troubles rather obscured his policies. Had he stood, it would have been a case of whether you could put up with all the baggage or whether you couldn't, not whether you liked his policies.

In fact DSK is an old fashioned corporate socialist. He likes big government, plenty of interference, and mistrusts free trade. Pretty well exactly what France doesn't need now.

Who will benefit from all this? Sarkozy, of course, who should have an easy run into a second term (barring disasters) and Marine Le Pen, who is likely to beat one of the lacklustre socialist candidates to become the contender.

DSK latest (No.348)

Story is that the case against DSK has imploded. It is early days, but worth remembering that the lists for nomination for leader of the French Left are open for another 2 weeks.

DSK would have won anyway, and if he were to stand now he would do so as a victim of American injustice, almost irresistible to a French voter.

Of course there is uncontested evidence that he had 'relations' with the woman, which would exclude him in a Protestant country but not in France.

Early days but this could be interesting.

DSK latest

There is talk that DSK is on suicide watch in prison, that a former pimp has said she supplied girls to him and that one of them complained about his violent behaviour, and that the lady in the current case lives in an AIDS hostel.

Of course none of this may be true, but it all makes you think.

In his letter of resignation DSK said "I think at this time first of my wife - whom I love more than anything - of my children, of my family, of my friends."

Thoughts on DSK

- At his bail hearing DSK looked dreadful. Gone was the soigné performer who topped up his perfume twice a day, the confident chaud lapin ladies' man. I was reminded of PG Wodehouse’s description of one of his characters... ‘He stared ahead, like a man who has drained the cup of life to its lees and found a dead mouse at the bottom’

- There will be a lot of stuff in the French and European Press about hick Americans having it in for the European haut monde, but I wouldn’t have granted him bail. They had to hoick him off a flight to a country with no proper extradition arrangements. Once he made it to France it would take a Presidential order to extradite him back to the USA, and if they kept that paedophile film director Polanski they would keep DSK (now he has been ruined).

- If Sarkozy has been behind this it might occasion him some regret: it is only a tradition that Europe gets the post of head of the IMF (the Americans get the World Bank) and the increasingly powerful developing countries are jealous of this. They also think too much attention and money has been given to Europe recently rather than to other more needy countries. Now is their chance to upset this applecart, and they have some good candidates.

- We don't yet know what John Lipsky, DSK's deputy, thinks about the bailouts of Greece and Portugal

DSK

President Sarkozy of France is certain that he can beat Ségolène Royal in the Presidential race, as he did last time. Equally he is certain he can beat her husband, François Hollande, or the insane communist Martine Aubry. And he knows that if Marine Le Pen, who is doing remarkably well in the polls, were to make it into a run off, the left would vote for him, holding their noses, as they did for Chirac when Marine’s father Jean-Marie was a contender.

The person he is worried about is Dominique Strauss-Kahn (by the way it is pronounced Stroasse – only Radio 4 seems to take the trouble to get it right), 62 year old head of the IMF.

Now DSK has been arrested in New York for alleged attempted rape of a chambermaid at an hotel.

DSK has a reputation, which he has rather encouraged, as being a grand séducteur, and was put on probation at the IMF a while back for having an affair with a subordinate.

Of course these things don’t get reported in France when committed by the great and good, because of their ridiculous privacy laws. But they do in America.

For DSK to continue either at the IMF or as a Presidential candidate this will have to be nipped in the bud pretty quickly, and even then, with his reputation, it is not going to look good.

Lucky Sarkozy?

There are whispers that luck had nothing to do with it.