For the past month, the political world has been shaken by what seems to me one of the biggest set ups of the decade. About a month ago, to the surprise of the whole French political class, the French socialist deputy and head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn (aka DSK), was arrested as he was boarding a plane for France in the JFK airport in New York for the rape of the maid in the hotel where he was staying. For 3 days, France wondered what was happening to the most popular socialist who was probably going to be the socialist representative in the elections of 2012 while the American media was unleashing waves of articles against the one they called "le perv". What is scandalous is that a famous and respected figure as DSK had to go through the "prep walk" as if he was just any common thug. After two days, the police established the time of the rape to have been 1pm. The next day, DSK's lawyers proved that DSK had been in fact having lunch at 12:30, and therefore could not have raped the hotel maid at 1. Well then, the NYPD said, the rape actually happened at 12. Now, it seems to me like you can't just change the time of a crime like that, but it seems that the NYPD can. Moreover, it is a little suspicious that although everyone knew that Dominique Strauss-Kahn liked women and sex, he was suddenly accused of rape for the first time only a month before he was (in theory) going to announce publicly that he was a candidate to France's 2012 elections. This accusation now leaves the French socialist party deprived of its strongest leader who would have doubtlessly beaten the current French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is much more liked of the Americans. For now, we cannot know wether DSK is innocent or not for his actual trial will take place on June 3rd, but what we do know is that his political career is indeed over because of this scandal, and he has in fact quit his job as head of the IMF.
