Full Comment’s Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily round-up of quality punditry from across the globe. France was upset at the criminal charges against IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn for approximately 24 hours. Now they’re back to being mad at the U.S. for treating him like … a criminal.
The arrest of Strauss-Kahn amid massive publicity introduced many French citizens to that classic of U.S. criminal arraignments, the perp walk. They are also seeing an adversarial justice system in operation, rather different from the one back home. Not to mention typical American puritanism and prudishness (imagine being upset at a little sexual adventurism) on full display.
France is now outraged — outraged — by a New York judge’s refusal to grant bail to the former IMF head. The judge noted that Strauss-Kahn might flee like Roman Polanski, pointing to the fugitive film director now living happily in Paris, thanks to his fortuitous French citizenship. (If the Elysée handed over Polanski, perhaps a deal could be done?)
Her action has frayed Franco-U.S. relations (again) and had the unlikely effect of casting the accused as a victim. Back home, his Socialist party are is disarray: DSK was odds-on favourite to defeat Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential poll.
Martine Aubry, the party’s leader, denounced “degrading images” and said France was lucky to have a law on the presumption of innocence that bars media from showing defendants in handcuffs before they are convicted. “We know there is a victim,” Jean-Marc Ayrault, another party leader, told fellow deputies. “What we don’t know yet is whether it is the plaintiff or the defendant.”
Jack Lang, a former culture minister, called DSK’s treatment a “lynching [that had] provoked horror and aroused disgust,” The Daily Mail reported.
“The U.S. justice system, he said, was ‘politicized’ and the judge appeared to have been determined to ‘make a Frenchman pay’ by denying the head of the International Monetary Fund bail even though his lawyer had offered to post a $1-million bond.
Former Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou … called the pre-trial publicity ‘absolutely sickening.’
‘The power of these images of a Dominique Strauss-Kahn who hasn’t been allowed to shave, tired, and not dressed properly, all that offends human dignity,’ she told Europe 1 radio.
Another respected former justice minister, Robert Badinter, said the IMF chief had been subjected to ‘death by media.’
‘Never forget it’s not just judges that are elected [in New York], but prosecutors. And the chief of police is elected. And clearly, in public opinion, to exhibit a powerful rich man in the presence of a victim from a very poor background, electorally, it pays off.”
At The Guardian, Isabelle Germain (in a generally anti-DSK piece) notes,
“The events leading to the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in New York are not yet known in their entirety. But, in France, the media reaction to the attempted rape charge confirms that when a rape or sexual assault is reported, the alleged perpetrator quickly morphs into victim – and vice versa …
In France, the case has swept to the top of the news agenda. But it has done so with an unequivocal message: poor DSK! The photographs of a wealthy and powerful man slumped and unshaven in the dock have evoked pity and sympathy – Martine Aubry, first secretary of the French Socialist party, said she was ‘stunned, shocked’ after seeing them, and pleaded for the media onslaught to stop.”
Meanwhile, DSK’s political opponents can scarcely control their glee.
“If the facts are as alleged, a very grave act was committed for which there is no excuse,” François Fillon, the Prime Minister, gravely told TF1 news, mouthing the accepted bromides.
“We have a responsibility to respond in a calm and measured way. No one should exploit this incident and rush to judgment.”
As for the current occupant of the Elysée — who would have faced DSK in next year’s presidential polls — he’s been given a second chance. The Socialist’s removal from politics almost guarantees a Sarkozy win in 2012, something that looked like a fantasy only last week.
He also has another vote-getter — his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is pregnant. His father Pal Sarkozy spilled the beans to the German tabloid Bild.
The French first lady, who has been dropping broad hints for weeks and wearing mum-to-be-ish clothes, is due to deliver in the fall, in good time for the campaigning season.
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compiled by Araminta Wordsworth
_ awordsworth@nationalpost.com