Full Comment’s Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily round-up of quality punditry from across the globe. Today: Who benefits most from the fall of Dominique Strauss-Kahn?
That’s the obvious question people are asking after the arrest of the International Monetary Fund boss in New York. DSK — as he is usually known — was the most likely candidate for the French Socialists in next year’s presidential elections, when Nicolas Sarkozy will have to run on his record.
Now, life looks a lot brighter for Sarkozy. The head of the International Monetary Fund, already notorious for his sexual appetites, is accused of attempting to rape a maid in his suite at the posh Sofitel hotel in Manhattan.
The charges have France in a twitter.
Literally. According to the newspaper Le Monde, the country’s media first learned the news via a tweet from a hotel employee to a friend who just happened to be a supporter of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, Sarkozy’s party. Jonathan Pinet then gleefully passed on the information.
The news has split the country. The right is saying the charges are long overdue, and there are reports other women assaulted by DSK are pondering legal action. Le Figaro called it “a thunderbolt for the socialists.”
Mr. Sarkozy’s office is remaining tightlipped, preserving the appearance of neutrality, although Henri de Raincourt, his minister for overseas cooperation, said France’s reputation could be damaged by the arrest.
Leftists are wondering about the startling coincidence that the assault charge comes just as DSK was about to enter the presidential race and muttering about a conspiracy. Certainly, the timing could not be worse for the party. As Pierre Haski points out in The Guardian,
“DSK had everything going for him: a discredited outgoing president, an opposition party in search of a saviour, and an economic context that made him the ideal man to lead a European country in the midst of the financial storm. He seemed set to win the Socialist party primaries, and to become the second Socialist president of the fifth republic, some 17 years after François Mitterrand. How could he blow his career prospects so stupidly?
This question is so disturbing that many in France think only a setup could explain his fall. Before the sexual assault story emerged, a series of negative stories about him had appeared in recent days: a photograph of him getting into a Porsche; an article in a trashy newspaper about his extravagantly priced suits; a cover story in a major news weekly L’Express about his excessive wealth.
But none of these cheap attacks scored.”
Haski by the way thinks the major beneficiary of the scandal will be Marine le Pen of the far-right Front National, rather than Sarkozy.
At The Daily Telegraph, Anne-Elisabeth Moutet credits DSK with an unlikely first — he’s the first French politician to be discredited by a sex scandal, rather than a financial one, she writes — and regrets what might have been.
“[His] likely candidacy – and probable victory – next year against Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential elections (he had been leading by double digits in every poll in recent months, even without declaring himself officially) should have ushered in a series of firsts for France’s political life. First French Socialist leader to have officially discounted Marxism; first Jew directly elected to the presidency; and first seriously rich president in a country where money, not sex, is a dirty word.

Instead, DSK, as he is known here, will go down in history as the first French politician whose career imploded because of a sex scandal, not a financial one. When the news broke in Paris early yesterday that France’s former finance minister had been arrested by the New York police for alleged sexual assault on a hotel housekeeper, reactions here were split between sheer disbelief, suspicions of entrapment and all-too-many knowing shrugs.”
Emma-Kate Symons at The Australian is among the skeptics.
“[Previous smears against DSK] set off a chorus of rumours about the fingerprints of the Elysee Palace, the UMP and Mr. Sarkozy’s mates at the New York Police Department. The U.S.-loving President, who has retained close relations with the NYPD since his tenure as interior minister, was first known as ‘Sarko the American.’
Jean-Paul Brunel writing in Presse Ocean, evoked Carla Bruni’s pregnancy. ‘Who has the most to gain from this scandal? The principal beneficiary of the elimination of DSK is called Nicolas Sarkozy — public opinion is asked to differentiate between a man of the Left accused of sexual agression, and a candidate of the Right, a supposed future father and familly man in the framework of the sacred bonds of marriage.’ ”
But journalist Jean Quatremer saw it all coming. When DSK was appointed to the IMF post in 2007, the Libération commentator warned on his blog the veteran French official’s behaviour would not be acceptable in the United States.

“DSK’s only problem is his relations with women. He is too insistent, often approaching harassment — something that is well-known among journalists but never discussed (he is a Frenchman). But the IMF is an international institution where the ethics are Anglo-Saxon. A misplaced gesture, a heavy-handed remark will produce a feeding frenzy among the media.”

Quatremer was not the only one to foresee DSK’s fall from grace. Just last month, the man himself told Libération journalists sex could prove his downfall, saying, “Yes, I like women. So what?”
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compiled by Araminta Wordsworth
_ awordsworth@nationalpost.com