New claims may derail DSK's plan
Source: Agencies |
July 5, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A FRENCH novelist will file a criminal complaint today accusing Dominique Strauss-Kahn of attempted rape, her lawyer said in Paris, throwing fresh uncertainty into a fierce national debate about whether the former International Monetary Fund chief can return to France's presidential race.
A sexual assault case against Strauss-Kahn in New York has been badly weakened by questions about his accuser's credibility. As a result, France was consumed yesterday by the question of whether the longtime Socialist Party politician would revive his dream of running against President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The political world was hit by a new shock when the lawyer for writer Tristane Banon announced she planned to file the complaint within a day.
Banon came forward after Strauss-Kahn's May 14 arrest in New York to accuse him of wrenching open her bra and trying to unbutton her jeans in 2002. Lawyer David Koubbi said Banon had been dissuaded at the time from filing charges by her mother, a regional councilor in Strauss-Kahn's party.
Koubbi had also said Banon had no plans of pressing charges while the American case was going on. Now, she is pressing forward, he said.
Before Koubbi's announcement, the country was split on whether it wanted Strauss-Kahn back in public life: two polls showed an almost even division between those who thought he should return and those who believed his political career was over.
The former IMF chief's re-entry to politics would be a tectonic shift in a campaign already shaken by his arrest on charges of attacking a New York hotel maid. The Socialist had been widely seen as the leading contender in the 2012 election, leading polls in the months before his arrest.
A poll released yesterday found 51 percent of French people found that Strauss-Kahn no longer had a political future, versus 42 percent who thought he did. The telephone poll of 956 adults was conducted on July 1 and 2 by the Ipsos Public Affairs Institute for the magazine Le Point.
Another poll conducted by Harris Interactive poll for the newspaper Le Parisien showed 49 percent respondents saying 'yes' to the question "Without prejudging his innocence or guilt, do you want DSK to come back to the French political scene one day?"
A sexual assault case against Strauss-Kahn in New York has been badly weakened by questions about his accuser's credibility. As a result, France was consumed yesterday by the question of whether the longtime Socialist Party politician would revive his dream of running against President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The political world was hit by a new shock when the lawyer for writer Tristane Banon announced she planned to file the complaint within a day.
Banon came forward after Strauss-Kahn's May 14 arrest in New York to accuse him of wrenching open her bra and trying to unbutton her jeans in 2002. Lawyer David Koubbi said Banon had been dissuaded at the time from filing charges by her mother, a regional councilor in Strauss-Kahn's party.
Koubbi had also said Banon had no plans of pressing charges while the American case was going on. Now, she is pressing forward, he said.
Before Koubbi's announcement, the country was split on whether it wanted Strauss-Kahn back in public life: two polls showed an almost even division between those who thought he should return and those who believed his political career was over.
The former IMF chief's re-entry to politics would be a tectonic shift in a campaign already shaken by his arrest on charges of attacking a New York hotel maid. The Socialist had been widely seen as the leading contender in the 2012 election, leading polls in the months before his arrest.
A poll released yesterday found 51 percent of French people found that Strauss-Kahn no longer had a political future, versus 42 percent who thought he did. The telephone poll of 956 adults was conducted on July 1 and 2 by the Ipsos Public Affairs Institute for the magazine Le Point.
Another poll conducted by Harris Interactive poll for the newspaper Le Parisien showed 49 percent respondents saying 'yes' to the question "Without prejudging his innocence or guilt, do you want DSK to come back to the French political scene one day?"
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