Despite many calls of "guilty" in the DSK scandal, we really don't know the full details yet. That's why we have trials. After hearing the French complain about the photos of DSK in handcuffs, I have to agree that it does make one look guilty. As an American, it's like watching a court case in a foreign land where defendants have to sit behind bars. Of course they look guilty, so how fair is that?
The political class in France has hardly risen to the occasion, as they have often supported DSK without knowing many of the actual facts. It's as silly as those insisting on his guilt. We don't know today. What we do know is that many in the political class have made some comments that help clarify woman are so poorly represented in politics and senior management in France.
Last Sunday France awoke to the news that Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund and leading light of the Socialist party, had been arrested on board a plane and charged with sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a chambermaid in his room at a Sofitel in New York. He denied the allegations "with the greatest of firmness". For the world, it was shocking enough; for much of Paris, it was insupportable – especially after pictures emerged of Strauss-Kahn, unshaven and forlorn, handcuffed in court.The general population has also supported DSK with many claiming that "it was just a blowjob." On the other side though, there are quite a few people - women especially - who are not surprised by the reaction of the political class. It's an issue that has not made much progress in decades and many are fed up with it.
In the hours and days that followed the arrest, a string of friends and Socialist allies stepped forward to defend a man they insisted could not have done such a thing. Jean-François Kahn, a well-known journalist, said he was "practically certain" that what had taken place had not been an attempted rape, but "an imprudence… the skirt-lifting of a domestic". Jack Lang, a former Socialist culture minister, wondered why, when "no man had died", Strauss-Kahn had not been released on bail immediately. Philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, meanwhile, raged against a legal system that had treated DSK like "any other person". "Everybody," declared the philosopher, "is not everybody!"
Also interesting has been the response by many that they are glad the DSK event took place in the US rather than in France, where it surely would have been swept under the rug. Even with as many problems as the US justice system has, people do have hope that the truth stands a better chance of emerging in the US than in France where political connections run deep.
