NY judge frees DSK

Le retour en force de DSK: comment les Français peuvent-ils oublier si vite?

By Clara Augereau
05/07/2011

After the revelation that the alleged victim lied on some of her assertions in the DSK case, Dominique Strauss-Khan now appears to be in the clear.

Seen as a dangerous sex criminal barely a month and a half ago, DSK is now released on parole after the American justice recognized that there were serious doubts about the accusations of Nafissatou Diallo. The disclosures came in a letter dated 30th June. The letter indicates that the woman lied about her application for asylum in the United States, lied to police and lied in her grand jury testimony about the alleged sexual assault. This revelation barely overshadows what happened in the room of the Sofitel and French people do not seem to be shocked at the thought of a possible political come-back for DSK, now known worldwide as a “pervert politician”.

According to a poll published by Le Parisien, 49% of French citizens and 60% of Socialist sympathizers would like to see DSK back on the political scene. Even if it is obvious that the popularity of DSK has been much eroded with this case, French people do not seem to have that many scruples about voting for a candidate for the PS primaries who is both a “sex addict” and an “unfaithful husband”.  

Actually, this is not so surprising if you remember the difficulty a lot of French citizens had in believing the story in the first place and the popularity of the “conspiracy theory” since the very beginning of the case. They wanted to believe in a possible come-back for the former Head of the IMF director as soon as a little evidence of possible innocence would be revealed.

However, facing the 49% of French citizens willing a DSK come back, 45% of them are reluctant; the categories of citizens being the more hostile are women, top executives, and retired citizens. That means that there is also a large part of citizens who now doubt the possibility of DSK winning the next elections or more radically don’t want him to come back on the political scene at all.

Regarding the Socialist politicians, even if the candidates, Francois Hollande and Martine Aubry, approved the idea to postpone the dates of the primaries of the party, all the politicians of the party believe that such a quick come back is much compromised.

In France, the reality of the facts is now put in question. As it isn’t sure there will be a trial, every citizen will keep his own idea about the case and what happened exactly. The charge could come very soon, and could even happen before the next audience, planned for 18^thJuly.