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DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN has returned to France for the first time since being charged with the attempted rape of a New York hotel maid, in a a scandal that wrecked the former IMF chief’s chances for the French presidency.
New York prosecutors later dropped their case against Strauss-Kahn because of questions about the maid’s credibility, but the affair cost him his job at the IMF and exposed his personal life to worldwide scrutiny that has stained his image and plunged his political future into uncertainty.
Smiling and waving silently, he stepped off an Air France flight this morning at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport – a different man from the one who, just four months ago, had been the pollsters’ favorite to beat President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential elections.
Few expect Strauss-Kahn to return to French politics soon, but his supporters have been eagerly awaiting his return after three months of legal drama in the US that they saw as unfairly hostile to him.
“I’m moved, I always believed in his innocence. I wanted very much for this to be over,” Michelle Sabban, a fellow Socialist Party member, said on i-Tele television.
His wife, respected former TV personality Anne Sinclair, was at Strauss-Kahn’s side as he arrived, beaming widely. Riot police protected him and the area. The crush of reporters outside their home was so thick that Strauss-Kahn had trouble reaching and opening his front door.
The last time he tried to take an Air France flight from JFK airport, Strauss-Kahn was pulled out of first class minutes before takeoff by police. They were investigating the maid’s claim that hours earlier, Strauss-Kahn had forced her to perform oral sex and tried to rape her.
He quit his job, spent almost a week in jail, then six weeks of house arrest and nearly two more months barred from leaving the country before Manhattan prosecutors dropped the case last month, saying they no longer trusted the maid, Guinean immigrant Nafissatou Diallo.
Diallo is continuing to press her claims in a lawsuit. Strauss-Kahn denies the allegations.
A Strauss-Kahn faces another investigation in France over attempted rape, based on accusations by French novelist Tristane Banon. He calls the claim “imaginary.”
Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret, believes that Strauss-Kahn’s return “is a good thing for my daughter’s complaint because he will have to answer to police.”
Banon says she didn’t file a complaint after the 2003 incident because her mother, a regional Socialist official, urged her not to.
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Good! Should never have come to this.
@Adrian O’Donnell: nothing good about abortion
@Adrian O’Donnell: yep..whatever about the delicate nature of this subject and you will get extreme views on both sides of the argument.. the Texas state was happy with the possibility of a man abusing his daughter and that little girl would be forced to have his baby…thats pretty perverted stuff.. not acceptable in a civil society..
I see the Irish Taliban are out already this morning, let women choose what they want for their own bodies.
@Pat Casey: and the other body involved?
@Seamus Mac: rinse, repeat
@Seamus Mac: at what point do you think a human body becomes sentient?
@Seamus Mac: The one that produced the sperm?
@OnlyHereForTheComments: Ya that describes abortion fairly well.
Will these Christian busy bodies be suing the executioners on death row, or the people who transport the lethal injections to prisons in order to get their $10,000 reward? Oh sorry, they’re not ‘unborn’.
@Rebecca BarrettNp: Couldn’t have said it better, its sums that lot up exactly.
Love that it’s all men on here screaming about “killing little babies”.
Let women have their bodily autonomy please. Women are not incubators.
@Accord Moan Eye: yes, I would never force someone to endure something that is happening within their own bodies
You can see where this is going. It will be appealed through the different levels right up to the US Supreme Court in Washington DC which consists of a majority of very conservative justices, thanks to Trump and McConnell. They will almost certainly ratify the ban but it will also open up the opportunity for other states to do the same. #RIP Roe v Wade
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the people who oppose abortions were the same anti-vaxxers,with their”my body,my choice”slogans??
It will be interesting if this makes it all the way to the supreme Court. The fact that its a majority Conservative panel would suggest that row v wade could be overturned however as far as I’m aware the supreme Court have never voted to remove a right that was already given to the people. It would be a major moment if this happened for the first time.
have your say