Strauss-Kahn case to unfold against changing tide of opinion

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tomorrow enters the next phase of his descent into darkness, watched by a France where shock and denial at his arrest have ceded to widening anger about sexual coercion in politics.

The 62-year-old former finance minister and International Monetary Fund head will be brought to a New York court where he will be read seven charges of sexual assault and unlawful imprisonment against a hotel chambermaid.

He is expected to plead not guilty, opening the way to a trial whose likely hallmarks will be scandal, muck-raking and innuendo.

In France, every twist and turn has been followed obsessively since the scandal erupted on May 14. But over three weeks, the emotional tone has changed in ways both radical and subtle.

Less visible in the headlines and on TV screens today are Strauss-Kahn's friends among Paris intellectuals and the Socialist Party, where he had been favoured to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy for the presidency in May next year.

In the days after his arrest, these had portrayed Strauss-Kahn as victim of a set-up or a brutal justice system. Some smirked at what they called American puritanism compared with France's supposedly grown-up attitude about sex.

"No one had died," leading Socialist Jack Lang said dismissively. Senior journalist Jean-Francois Kahn likened the case to "debagging a servant" ("troussage de domestique"), a phrase recalling the ancient traditions of the nobility to demand sex from their maids. Strauss-Kahn, declared Left Bank philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, was not "answerable [to the law] as other people are". The outcry over such opinions has unleashed the start of a pendulum swing.

It is being led by feminists who say that what passes for seduction and "mature attitudes" towards sex among French politicians often is a mask for sexual predation.

Several leading female politicians have spoken out about verbal harassment from colleagues, or salacious or critical remarks - even heard on the benches in Parliament - if a woman MP wears a skirt or summer blouse or is not pretty.

"The DSK affair has had the effect of ending an omerta, particularly among female politicians who are now free to denounce certain attitudes," said political analyst Stephane Rozes.

The first casualty of the change has been Georges Tron, who quit as President Sarkozy's civil service minister last week.

He resigned after two female municipal employees, emboldened by the Strauss-Kahn case, accused him of sexual harassment and rape. A legal probe has been opened; Tron denies the accusations.

Chantal Brunel, a legislator in the governing Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) party, predicted the Strauss-Kahn affair would spill widely into the public domain. "This changes things a lot in terms of violence towards women," she said. "There were 10,100 recorded cases of rape in France last year, but it's estimated that only one victim in 10 reports her ordeal to the police."

The affair has also sparked a debate over France's strict privacy laws and the reflex of French journalists to ignore sex scandals on the grounds that a politician's private life should be off-limits to the media.

Even so, change here seems a long way off, as former education minister and celebrity philosopher Luc Ferry learned to his cost.

Speaking in a TV discussion last week, Ferry said he had heard "from a prime minister" during his time in office from 2001 to 2004, that a former minister had been caught in a paedophile orgy with boys in Morocco.

Ferry said he had no specific proof that a crime had taken place, but outraged politicians and editorialists demanded in unison that he give details to investigators or shut up.

"Dirty Ferry," headlined Liberation, a left-wing daily that sees itself as progressive and traces its founding to Jean-Paul Sartre, back in 1973.

Liberation pledged in an editorial earlier that its "first principle will be to continue to respect politicians' private lives".

"In the eyes of some people, it's a hypocritical democratic principle, but it is fundamental," it declared.

Socialist deputy Andre Vallini said France faced "going down the same road as in England", where, he said darkly, the press fed on rumour and scandal.

"People have had enough," Vallini told the radio station Europe 1. "I don't want French politics to be this sort of slimy, revolting business."