The Economist (20150214) by calibre

Author:calibre
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: news, The Economist
Publisher: calibre
Published: 2015-02-13T00:25:28.128000+00:00

The DSK trial

Bad days in Lille

Whatever its outcome, the trial of the former IMF boss breaks French taboos

Feb 14th 2015 | PARIS | From the print edition

No longer a world saviour

WHEN Dominique Strauss-Kahn was hauled off a plane in New York in 2011 and arrested on charges of sexual assault, there was indignation in France. At worst, it was seen as a set-up; at best, the result of American puritanical excess. The spectacle of a handcuffed IMF head doing the “perp walk” aroused special outrage. “It’s not as if anybody died,” shrugged a senior French Socialist.

Those charges were eventually dropped, but France now has its own home-grown version in a courtroom in Lille. Mr Strauss-Kahn, along with 13 others, is accused of “aggravated pimping”, an offence that carries up to ten years in jail. As details of orgies with prostitutes in Washington, Paris and Lille have emerged, the French are being torn between an instinctive respect for privacy over sexual behaviour and a creeping moral disquiet.

The presiding judge in the trial, which opened on February 2nd, made it clear that this was a criminal, not a moral, hearing. The case against Mr Strauss-Kahn hinges on whether he knew that the women who attended soirées libertines, or group-sex parties, often organised in his honour, were paid. In France prostitution is not illegal, but pimping and soliciting are. On February 10th Mr Strauss-Kahn admitted taking part in such parties—but no more than “four times a year”, he said, because he was too busy “saving the world” after the global financial crisis. He had no idea, he added, that he was having sex with prostitutes.

Up to a point, the French have reacted with indifference. A man many once saw as a Socialist front-runner for president is no longer a public figure. There has been plenty of news coverage, but no editorial outpouring of moral disapproval. The day after Mr Strauss-Kahn testified, Le Monde, a left-leaning newspaper, had no story about the trial on its front page.

Yet as the prostitutes testify, this tolerance is being put to the test. One recounted tearfully enduring an act of sodomy by Mr Strauss-Kahn. (He said he might have a “rougher” than average sexuality.) A group of topless feminist protesters tried to disrupt Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrival in court. Jean Quatremer, a journalist who raised questions about Mr Strauss-Kahn’s sexual behaviour in 2007, said it was time for the media to examine their own silence. “Why does the press have such difficulty criticising the powerful over their private lives?” he asked.

Never before has such a once-powerful French figure had his bedroom activities exposed in public, semi-pornographic detail. Most cases of sexual assault against French politicians are dropped, including one by Tristane Banon, a French writer, against Mr Strauss-Kahn. Mr Strauss-Kahn may yet be acquitted. But a taboo has been broken, and traditional indifference to sexual excess called, painfully, into question.

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