FRANCE/FILE: Official biography explores the hidden side of Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Record ID: 559549

  • Title: FRANCE/FILE: Official biography explores the hidden side of Dominique Strauss-Kahn
  • Date: 2nd December 2011
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - SEPTEMBER 4, 2011) (REUTERS) ANNE SINCLAIR AND DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN IN THE COURTYARD OF THEIR BUILDING, LOOKING AT CAMERA AND WAVING
  • Embargoed: 17th December 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa, France
  • City:
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Finance,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA4AO4260WDGD9PG4QXV0RHDMRV
  • Story Text: Dominique Strauss-Kahn has admitted that he had an "uninhibited sex life" in an official biography published on Thursday, but his biographer said the former head of the International Monetary Fund says he is not a violent man.
    The book, written by Michel Taubmann who says Strauss-Kahn confided in him, covers sex scandals that have dogged the former French finance minister even after the U.S. assault case ended his career as IMF head and wrecked his chances of running in France's 2012 election.
    Strauss-Kahn is quoted as saying in the book that his sexual encounter with a New York hotel maid was "consensual but stupid", something that cost him his chance to be the next French president, according to the biography.
    "In my book on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I said that this man had cheated his wife many times, I said that he was a ladies' man, I said that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was not hiding himself, that he would send text messages to women. I said things that had never been said about a politician but I did not give any scabrous details. I said that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was a compulsive seducer, a light man, an unfaithful husband, but I would have found it unworthy of myself to give the names of the women with whom he cheated his wife," said Taubmann.
    Taubmann says he is the only man to have met Strauss-Kahn after the events in the U.S and to have interviewed him about the incident at the Sofitel during the summer. The writer said Strauss-Khan had an "uninhibited sex life" but says that was not unusual in political and business circles and that he had done nothing illegal.
    "He he always needing to seduce, to have women around him but he is not the only one among French politicians. But maybe his fault was not to take care," Taubmann said.
    Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York on May 14 onboard a plane bound for Europe minutes before take-off and charged with attempting to rape Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid.
    Prosecutors eventually dropped all criminal charges, leaving him free to return to his native France. French prosecutors then ruled that a separate sexual assault complaint filed against Strauss-Kahn by a writer, Tristane Banon, involved an incident that happened too long ago for legal action.
    Taubmann said the one-time contender for the French presidency was "the victim of a plot". According to the biographer, there could have been orders coming from France to stop Dominque Strauss-Kahn from being released on May 15.
    Recalling the day after DSK's arrest in New York, Taubmann said that a bail agreement had been negotiated when a sudden event stopped Strauss-Kahn from going home -- information of similar events involving Strauss-Kahn in France had reached the New York prosecutor's office.
    "At the moment when Strauss-Kahn has to leave, whereas a 250 000 dollar bail has been negotiated between his lawyers and the office of the prosecutor, at that moment, he is told: "Don't go. Something new happened"," Taubmann said.
    "I heard through various sources that the new thing which happened, is that in the morning, or in the preceding hours or minutes, some information had come from France, to the prosecutor's office, saying that there were some antecedents of a similar type, serious moral cases. Not of adultery but attempted rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn," he added.
    But according to the author, information of neither the French case of attempted rape, which was dropped, nor of the Carlton affair involving a prostitution ring which was revealed after the summer, where known at that time.
    Strauss-Kahn last month asked to speak to investigators in the case to try to end the "dangerous and malicious insinuations".
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