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Dominique Strauss-Kahn: What Does the IMF Chief's Arrest Mean?

He's lived in Washington for the last three and a half years. Here's how he positioned himself to be the next French president and how his latest scandal will affect his country.

By Apolline de Malherbe    Published Monday, May 16, 2011

Photograph by Jérôme Bonnet/Corbis Outline

Editor’s note: The June issue of The Washingtonian—which has already been printed and is currently being mailed to subscribers and delivered to newsstands—includes a profile of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who has lived in relative obscurity in Washington for the last three and a half years. Titled “The Invisible Man” and written by French journalist Apolline de Malherbe, the profile was meant to introduce Strauss-Kahn’s neighbors here in Washington to a man considered one of Europe’s leading politicians—a man, as we say in the article, who might well be standing next to you in line at Whole Foods. We had no way to know that Strauss-Kahn would be front-page news by the time the issue arrived in the homes of subscribers and on newsstands; this weekend news broke that Strauss-Kahn had been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York. What follows is an updated version of the article:

When Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken into police custody on Saturday afternoon for an alleged sexual assault, it marked the likely end of what had been a remarkable political comeback. “DSK,” as he’s known throughout France, had gone in just a few years from an outsider in French politics, the loser of the Socialist Party’s presidential primaries, to the man many had come to see as their country’s savior.

As head of the IMF, he lived in Washington for the last three and a half years, one of those very powerful men who float through the city without attracting much notice. He was the leading candidate to become the next president of France, yet Strauss-Kahn and his wife could sit on the patio at Cafe Milano without a single paparazzo or gawker. And while the two of them were expected to unseat one of the most famous couples in the world—Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni—they didn’t get a second glance in the checkout line at the Georgetown Whole Foods.

On the other side of the Atlantic, it was another story. Recent polls predicted that Strauss-Kahn would have knocked off Sarkozy with a 61-to-39-percent win. The country’s future seemed to hinge on the question of whether he would run. Politicians and journalists had taken to beginning their sentences with “If DSK comes back . . . .”

Then, on Saturday afternoon, he was apprehended just minutes before his Air France flight to Paris was scheduled to take off from New York’s Kennedy International Airport. The news that he was accused of attacking a maid at the New York Sofitel, where he was staying, caused what has been described as a “political earthquake” in France, shaking the country’s political landscape.

The IMF seemed to quickly cut ties with Strauss-Kahn, announcing within hours of his arrest that first deputy managing director John Lipsky would take the helm of the fund as acting managing director. In France, Strauss-Kahn’s political allies have spoken out in his defense, and even his rivals have been cautious in their statements, perhaps not wanting to seem too gleeful about the news.

Strauss-Kahn was expected to plead not guilty this morning, and his wife, Anne Sinclair, has said she's certain he's innocent. In France, the widespread disbelief that this man who was seen by many as a champion of their country—and who was so close to becoming president—would do such a thing has given rise to serious talk that he was framed in a plot to discredit his political career, the Socialist party, or the IMF. UPDATE 1:30 PM: Dominique Strauss-Kahn appeared in court this morning and pleaded not guilty to attempted rape and other charges associated with an alleged sexual attack. The judge ordered that he be held without bail. If convicted, he would face up to 25 years in prison. In the meantime, new allegations arose that he had sexually assaulted another woman in 2002.

Strauss-Kahn has long been seen as a political survivor. He has weathered other storms—including an affair with a subordinate in 2008 that nearly cost him his job at the IMF. But while few French political analysts have been ready to say with certainty that his political career is over, the consensus is that it will be very difficult for him to recover.

Comments

Who-da hell cares?

Posted by: WHoda, May 29, 2011 07:18:39 PM

I know I’m quite naive in these matters but it seems to me that his (DSK) behaviour with women has been known for a long time. Nobody cared - or at least not enough to do anything about it. Why now?
Looking at the Euro and Greek debt and intransigence
I’m just wondering if his position was out of sync with the way the powermongers want things to go? It’s only a thought I really have no idea what’s behind it - but I am sure that for all the news stories and headlines we really aren’t being told the real story.

Posted by: fi, May 28, 2011 09:08:57 PM

I am not going to criticize you for being overtaken by news events, but I do wish to note that your magazine has written some incredibly puffy profiles in recent editions that I thought were hyped and not believable. It is a magazine, and it takes its stands. I understand that. But when you gush over people in the future, could the editors consider including a paragraph or two of the down side. I hope you learn something from this experience.

Posted by: Edward Allen , May 25, 2011 07:51:36 PM

Un vrai cauchemar! A real nightmare for DSK! Instead of running for the presidency of France he ought to run to a psychiatrist as soon as he is able to.

Posted by: Fred A. Kahn, May 25, 2011 11:38:34 AM

"Strauss-Kahn began by getting rid of 400 people, 15 percent of the workforce, through buyouts. It was a very traditional social-democrat approach—nobody was fired, only strongly encouraged to leave with generous subsidies and help."

The right approach would have been to fire himself! The main problems with the IMF are its culture and its approach. Unless these problems are addressed, the IMF will remain as irrelevant as ever to the poor countries. The alleged raping of the vulnerable chamber maid is symbolic of the rapes that the IMF continue to perpetrate on poor countries day in and day out!

Posted by: joena lopez, May 25, 2011 10:31:01 AM

It was and remains a good story. Because it captures so well how someone that powerful, and well known elsewhere, was a virtual nobody for 99.9 % of the American public.

Posted by: phil, May 24, 2011 06:55:50 PM

The Washingtonian is becoming the Internet Generation’s version of The Literary Digest.

Posted by: Frank Winstead, May 23, 2011 01:19:14 PM

Subject: Edited posting. I apologize for my typographical errors in my earlier commentary’s posting. The following would be more appropriate.

I have just received the print issue of the June Washingtonian’s with the headline of "The invisible man,"with an erroneous name twice, as Dominique Strauss-Khan! Obviously it is an editor’s misspelling! Fortunately the misspelling absolves me for having half of the person’s name even though I am also a political economist and French is my bi-native language. However, I am better known as the early proponent of presidential debates which was then endorsed personall by the late Honorable Eleanor Roosevelt. I am credited by rhe Nixon foundation äs the spark that led to the presidential debate of 1960 between Vice President Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy."I claim also to be ïnvisible,"

Posted by: Fred A. Kahn , May 21, 2011 02:14:53 PM

I hust received the print issue of the June Washingtonian’s with the headline of "The invisible man,"with an erroneous name teice, as Dominique Strauss-Khan, Obviously an editor’s extraordinary demonstration of incompetence! Fortunately the misspelling absolves me for having half of the person’s name even though O am also a politic economist and French is my bi-native language. I am better known as the early proponent of presidential debatyes which was endorsed personally then by the late Honorable Eleanor Roosevelt.

Posted by: Fred Kahn , May 21, 2011 02:06:04 PM

M. Paivi Kunnas,

What such incoherent babble wordchoice of kindergartner is! DSK Freedom Rapist is! You Yoda talker are.

Cheers,

A

Posted by: Alan Bajandas, May 16, 2011 09:14:48 PM

oh the perils of putting "news" in monthly magazines.

Posted by: fmi, May 16, 2011 06:48:33 PM

This scandal may be manipulated, why not? It was the hotel management who had sent the maid in the room of Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, knowing through surveillance technology (digital), that the room was busy. Why? In addition, in hotels like Sofitel, they are always two maids who make the room to annoy the least time possible clients. Thus, we may ask why the director Jorge Tito, who says give much importance to the safety of its staff, sent the woman alone to make the room?

And if it turns out that sexual assault has taken place, we can only think of a trap: A millionaire of this caliber - Will he need to rape a maid when he could have n ’matter what call girl of his choice? Or perhaps he asked a prostitute and the director had sent his housekeeper? In which case, realizing the trap which had been tense, DSK would soon be gone. Rapidely, the hotel manager rushed to declare publicly the facts which are alleged to DSK ...

More on my blog: paivikunnas.wordpress.com

Posted by: Päivi Kunnas, May 16, 2011 05:39:42 PM

Peculiar story, why someone so powerful would do something like that? Edan Aharony

Posted by: Edan Aharony, May 16, 2011 11:09:34 AM

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