Strauss-Kahn sex case throws open election race
The arrest of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sexual assault charges has plunged France’s Socialists into turmoil and thrown wide open the race for the presidency.
France was mesmerized on Monday by TV images of a handcuffed Strauss-Kahn, a center-leftist viewed until now as the frontrunner for the 2012 election, being led away by police for DNA tests over the alleged assault in a New York hotel.
His lawyers said Strauss-Kahn would plead not guilty to charges that he tried to rape a chambermaid at the hotel after chasing her, naked, down a corridor and trying to lock her in a room.