Soul-Searching in France After Official’s Arrest Jolts Nation
The arrest in New York of one of France’s leading global figures and a possible next president, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on charges of attempted rape produced an earthquake of shock, outrage, disbelief and embarrassment throughout France on Sunday.
The country woke up to the tawdry allegations that Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, a leading Socialist and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, had waylaid and tried to rape a maid in a $3,000-a-night suite at a New York hotel, and the reverberations were immediate.
The government of President Nicolas Sarkozy responded cautiously, saying the presumption of innocence must be maintained and the courts must be allowed to do their work, while the leader of the Socialist Party, Martine Aubry, admitted that she was “totally stupefied” by the charges against the man who had been considered most likely to bring her party back to power in next year’s presidential elections by defeating Mr. Sarkozy.
