What Strauss-Kahn incident reveals about France

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What Strauss-Kahn incident reveals about France

Opinions

Friday, 20 May 2011 12:02

Rachel Marsden
Tribune Media

International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, known as the "Great Seducer" in his home country of France, flunked out at seducing New York Judge Melissa C. Jackson this week. Instead, she sent him to Rikers Island pending further court appearances in the wake of a Sofitel maid's accusations that he attempted to force his charisma upon her before leaving for the airport and boarding a plane, where authorities arrested him.

I'm in no position to judge the facts of this case. Not only was I not in the hotel room, but my experience with Strauss-Kahn — or "DSK," as he's known here in France — is limited to having seen him on the cover of the newspaper France Soir in his capacity as presidential hopeful. I immediately texted to a French friend that the look Strauss-Kahn was giving in the cover photo made my skin crawl. But who am I to judge anything definitively with my gut instinct honed by thousands of years of human evolution? I think I'll let the State of New York apply a more objective test.
But as a Canadian-born political analyst and media commentator who has spent the bulk of her career in America and now lives and works in that same capacity in Paris, it's not the details of this case that I find striking or the most disturbing, but rather what the incident says more globally about French culture and the way things work here.
It would appear that this is France's first real sex scandal. Not that people in power here haven't previously behaved abominably. Jacques Chirac, for instance, once bragged that he loved many women despite being quite obviously married to his long-suffering Bernadette. Centrist President Valery Giscard d'Estaing is alleged to have fathered an extramarital love child with Christine de Veyrac, who's now a European Parliament member. Francois Mitterrand kept a second secret family at taxpayers' expense while he led the country, proving that not even taxpayer burden can justify public exposure of peccadilloes.
Anglo-Saxons, myself included prior to moving here, tend to dismiss the French lackadaisical attitude toward their elite's personal lives as being culturally ingrained. That may be true, but it's a phenomenon that was brought about by strict law as a result of unfortunate history. In the wake of World War II, during which being outed as a Jew meant a trip to the gas chamber, people's personal lives became off-limits. Now, the same law that emerged from the Holocaust is used by celebrities to sue tabloids that publish photos or information related to their love lives without permission. Some stars even hire photographers to take such photos so they can then turn a profit.
Parti Radical advisor Dominique Paille hinted at a possible setup, or DSK "slipping on a banana peel." The idea has since been echoed by Socialist Party members and commenters on French websites. It's also the most prevalent comment I've heard from people in the streets of Paris. Not to say that the details of the case as they've currently been laid out favor a conspiracy theory. But the French equate convoluted complexity with a high level of intelligence. That a man of such prominence could simply get caught with his pants down isn't the first likelihood that comes to the mind of an "intelligent" Frenchman. Occam's razor is reserved for Anglo-Saxon simpletons. So I've been regaled with various theories related to the possible perpetrators: the Greeks upon whom DSK was just about to foist deep austerity through the IMF; Nicolas Sarkozy; DSK's potential opponents for the Socialist Party presidential ticket within his own party; the Freemasons; the Illuminati; the "globalists"; the Bilderbergs ...
If this incident had happened here in France rather than in the USA, I guarantee that we wouldn't be hearing about it at all. If there's something the French ought to ponder, it's that.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and former Fox News host who writes regularly for major publications in the U.S. and abroad. Her website can be found at http://www.rachelmarsden.com.