Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is still facing trial in New York over accusations of sexual assault, will bring slander charges against a French woman who plans to sue him for an alleged rape attempt.
Tristane Banon, a French journalist and a writer who claims Strauss-Kahn attempted to rape her in 2002, has decided to press charges against the politician. She alleged in 2007 that Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her, but has avoided taking the case to court until now.When Strauss-Kahn was placed under arrest in New York, Banon announced she would wait till the end of the process to press her own charges. However, on Monday it became known that Banon’s suit against Strauss-Kahn will be submitted to the Paris court on July 5.Strauss-Kahn's fellow Socialists fear the new allegations could ruin his chances of running for the presidency.In May 2011 Strauss-Kahn was arrested over accusations of sexual assault made by a New York hotel maid. He had to resign from his position as IMF head. After almost a month of the judicial process, the maid’s case was badly weakened after prosecutors admitted her credibility had been compromised by several lies.Paul Craig Roberts, the former assistant treasury secretary in the Reagan administration and a former Wall Street Journal editor, believes the case brought by Banon is quite a weak one.“I suspect that the French attorney will reconsider the case because the New York case has been falling apart, it doesn’t give much prospect for the French case. So he‘ll probably reconsider, he may withdraw or he will advise her to withdraw it,” said Roberts.Roberts also added there were allegations the New York case had had a political motive and was organized by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.“The French press has reported that Strauss-Kahn said before he even came to the United States that he expected Sarkozy to pay some French woman a million euros to bring sex charges against him. And he said that was because he was leading Sarkozy in the polls for the French presidency, and Strauss-Kahn said that would be Sarkozy’s response,” Roberts told RT.Pierre Guerlain, a professor of political science at Paris West University Nanterre La Defense, believes that there are still chances that Strauss-Kahn will return to politics and may even stand in the next presidential election.“If he is totally exonerated, there’s a chance [he] could come back,” Guerlain told RT. “It’s difficult to know how it’s going to play out, because if he is exonerated he can come back as a hero. [Otherwise], people may feel that this guy has too many sexual stories and so on.“I think if he doesn’t become a president, he could still probably become a minister, even the prime minister,” he concluded.