2011年5月16日星期一

Soul-Searching in France After Official’s Arrest Jolts Nation

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中,找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件,或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中,找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件,或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

PARIS — The arrest in New York of one of France’s leading global figures and a possible next president, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on charges of attempted rape produced an earthquake of shock, outrage, disbelief and embarrassment throughout France on Sunday.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was led from a police station Sunday.

A Manhattan hotel where Mr. Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the I.M.F., was accused of trying to rape a maid.

The country woke up to the tawdry allegations that Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, a leading Socialist and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, had waylaid and tried to rape a maid in a $3,000-a-night suite at a New York hotel, and the reverberations were immediate.

The government of President Nicolas Sarkozy responded cautiously, saying the presumption of innocence must be maintained and the courts must be allowed to do their work, while the leader of the Socialist Party, Martine Aubry, admitted that she was “totally stupefied” by the charges against the man who had been considered most likely to bring her party back to power in next year’s presidential elections by defeating Mr. Sarkozy.

Some, including Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s wife, the American-born French television journalist Anne Sinclair, expressed disbelief in the charges and faith in her husband’s innocence. His lawyer has said he would plead not guilty. Others talked darkly of a possible “setup” of Mr. Sarkozy’s most prominent rival.

But there was a general recognition that whatever the outcome — unless the police have made a horrible error — the arrest had exploded Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s political hopes, upended France’s political landscape and abruptly ended his career at the I.M.F., which is in the middle of crucial negotiations about loans for distressed nations of the European Union.

The impact of his arrest was likely to emerge dramatically on Monday at two meetings, one in Brussels where European finance ministers were gathering, and the other in Paris where the Socialist party scheduled an emergency conclave.

The I.M.F. quickly appointed an acting managing director on Sunday to replace Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who spent hours in a Manhattan holding cell awaiting arraignment, which was postponed until Monday after additional evidence was sought including DNA samples from his fingernails and skin.

As the impact of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s predicament hit home, others, including some in the news media, began to reveal accounts, long suppressed or anonymous, of what they called Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s previously predatory behavior toward women and his aggressive sexual pursuit of them, from students and journalists to subordinates.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s extramarital affairs have long been considered an open secret. But the legal charges against him — which include attempted rape, an illegal sexual act and an effort to sequester another person against her will — are of an entirely different magnitude, even in France and elsewhere in continental Europe, where voters have generally shown more lenience than Americans toward the sexual behavior of prominent politicians, most notably the sexual escapades of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy.

“If the accusations turn out to be true — and even if they are proved false — this is a degrading thing,” said Fran?ois Bayrou, a centrist who ran for the presidency in 2007.

The left-leaning newspaper Libération ran the headline “Shock. Political Bomb. Thunderclap.”

The deputy editor, Vincent Giret, wrote sadly on Sunday that Mr. Strauss-Kahn seemed “best-armed to respond to the disarray of the French, exhausted by the crisis and disoriented by the crazy reign of Sarkozy.” But Mr. Strauss-Kahn apparently believed he could win the presidency “without fighting,” Mr. Giret said, and so did not follow a path of “renunciation and abnegation.”

The entire French political world used superlatives to comment on Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest. Dominique Paillé, the former spokesman of Mr. Sarkozy’s party, called it a “historical moment, in negative terms, in French politics.” Other Sarkozy supporters were predictably harsh.

Reporting was contributed by Elaine Sciolino, Liz Alderman, Ma?a de la Baume and Scott Sayare.


View the original article here

没有评论:

发表评论