Dangerous liaisons

The case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French head of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) accused of attempting to rape a chambermaid in a
New York hotel, has shone a light on the conspiracy of silence among
French journalists.

When French President Francois Mitterrand died, the French people
discovered his mistress, photographed at his graveside. Every French
journalist knew about the president’s second family, but none had
reported on it.

You can’t only put it down to France’s privacy laws. In the case of
Mitterrand’s mistress, Anne Pingeot, it turned out she was being housed
courtesy of the French taxpayer — surely a matter of public interest.

This brings me to DSK, until now the leading Socialist candidate for the French presidency in next year’s election. When his name came up as a potential managing director of the IMF, where was the due diligence? DSK’s sexual dalliances were well-known, but only one journalist — in a blog — raised the question of whether his behavior, “verging on harassment,” made him a suitable candidate.

On a late-night TV program in 2007, a journalist who had been the subject of rumors stepped forward, accusing him of sexually assaulting her when she went to interview him. The woman, Tristane Banon, is now considering legal action. Once ensconced at the IMF, DSK embarked on an affair with an economist who was his subordinate and was forced to apologize after an investigation. His victim, Piroska Nagy, wrote in a letter to investigators: “I fear that he is a man with a problem that may make him ill-equipped to lead an institution where women work under his command.”

There is more to this than the eternal clash of civilizations between the sexually uninhibited French and the puritanical Anglo-Saxon world. It’s about the public’s right to know. In France, the soul-searching has begun. It’s about time.