Strauss-Kahn release stuns adversaries

Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s release from house arrest has stunned French politicians, the public and press, who are wondering whether he can emerge clean from a sex crime case and return to the presidential race.

Fresh doubts over the credibility of his accuser reignited the story of the decade in France, beating the Monaco royal wedding and the start of the Tour de France as the top topic of dinner-table chatter this weekend.

“The incredible come-back of Dominique Strauss-Kahn,” read the headline in Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche, which insisted that now “he will never be tried.”

Claims that the Guinean hotel maid who accuses him of trying to rape her lied to police, and was recorded discussing with a drug-dealer the possibility of getting money out of Mr Strauss-Kahn, opened a new act in the drama.

“I’m going from one astonishment to another,” said Francois Bayrou, leader of a centre-right minority party. “Only a Hollywood scriptwriter could have imagined such a story.”

Mr Strauss-Kahn, a powerful French politician who was head of the IMF global lender until the scandal hit, walked free and untagged from house arrest on Friday pending his next court appearance after a judge heard the latest claims.

“This is a complete reversal. The idea that the case may be dismissed is incredible,” Sabine de Marigny, 44, a fashion designer, said on a Paris street.

The violent nature of the accusations – that he chased the maid around his hotel suite, grabbed her private parts and forced her to give him oral sex – had prompted mourning for France’s image in the world.

Despite all this, a poll published by Harris Interactive yesterday showed a majority of 49 per cent of French people now approved of Mr Strauss-Kahn returning to politics, with 45 per cent opposed.

Previous polls had showed that 60 per cent of French people believe the sex assault claims were a set-up to bring down Mr Strauss-Kahn, previously the favourite to beat President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s election.

Mr Strauss-Kahn’s political career had been widely declared over after the scandal, which shook up his opposition Socialist Party and prompted its leader Martine Aubry to declare that she would run for president.

Friday’s court hearing left the Socialist campaign wide open, and many in France no longer knowing what to think, after weeks of soul-searching about sex and sexism in French public life.

“The DSK affair allowed us to shed light on and ask questions about our morals – perhaps even to change them,” wrote senior editor Olivier Jay in Le Journal du Dimanche.

“It is up to us not to make the media stoop low even when the public seems to demand it, and to reserve the right to simply say: We do not know.”

The doubts cast on the maid’s case prompted calls by some Socialists for the party’s candidate-selection process to be extended to allow Mr Strauss-Kahn time to enter.

Francois Hollande, the Socialists’ former leader currently polling as favourite to beat Mr Sarkozy in Mr Strauss-Kahn’s absence, said he was open to such a move, as did Segolene Royal, a former presidential challenger also running in 2012.