IMF head Strauss-Khan charged with sexual assault, attempted rape and imprisonment of hotel maid in New York

Greythorne, that link is fantastic. It perfectly captures the vicious pomposity of Henri-Levy.

Gosh I have no idea about that SGM - will ask DH. I am an ignorant ex-pat.

PIL would explode in a fit of champagne socialist rage if I mentioned that to them.

This article is quite good.

www.tnr.com/article/against-the-current/88598/strauss-kahn-levy-daniel-badinter-IMF

Bernard-Henri Lévy is a pompous misogynistic dickhead.

Don't know whether to laugh or cry (decision: cry) at "what was she doing in his room anyway?" - it just shows how these lines get trotted out every time regardless of whether they make any sense at all.

Ah yes PIL were outraged by the handcuffing.

This was the point when they said 'innocent until proven guilty' the most rabidly.

Most of the other French people I know (who are my age) think that he has probably stepped over a line one time too many.

twat

Very true. I was disgusted by DSK's friends and allies, talking about how incredibly cruel his treatment at the hands of American police and judiciary was. One guy said he had tears in his eyes thinking about it. Idiots.

My French PIL are convinced that he has been set up by the Americans.

They also say that Tristane Banon 'made it up' as 'revenge' for something to do with a book of hers that failed to get published because of S-K.

They also think that the fact that he has a reputation for sexually harassing women shouldn't even be discussed, as a history of sexual harassment isn't such a bad thing, and doesn't mean a man is capable of rape. They obviously think that rapists are evil drooling psychopaths.

FIL also came out with gems like 'what was she doing in his room anyway?' (Um, doing her job you thicko).

We only spoke about it for about 5 minutes but they got so incensed by my comment that 'rape/sexual assault happens all the time - it is so much more likely that this is true than untrue, the complicated set up by the Americans scenario was stretching credulity and was without evidence'.

They also said he's innocent 'innocent until proven guilty' about a million times.

They were gagging to call me a man-hater and a French hater but managed to rein themselves in.

Oh heck, try again:
www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-17/laila-lalami-defends-dominique-strauss-kahns-accuser/?cid=topic:mostrecent1

This is good:
www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-17/laila-lalami-defends-dominique-strauss-kahns-accuser/?cid=topic:mostrecent1

I heard that French politician Edith Whatever-her-name is being interviewed on the World at One and she was saying 'No of course he would never do something like this, it's absurd'. How can anyone really say with utter certainty that they 'know' someone wouldn't rape? And given what's since come out about Tristane Banon, I think both she and BHL are lying through their teeth anyway

As dittany said on the clothes thread "I think the problem in a way is with the word rapist - people think that rapists are some kind of evil inhuman monsters who don't look like ordinary men. Thing is they do. Ordinary men rape. They're the ones who are doing it. They live amongst us. So people need to stop twisting rapist into this thing from a horror film, or CSI episode, and start addressing the reality, which is that most victims are raped by men close to them - their husbands, their partners, friends, acquaintances etc. Until then we'll have this stupid fantasy of an evil rapist jumping out from behind a set of bushes and dragging his victim into a dark alley because he was overcome because of the short skirt she was wearing."

Or are raped by senior politicians when you are doing your job. (I'll thow in an allegedly if it makes some people happy).

How many rapes by husbands, partners, friends, acquaintances or customers have to happen before the vast majority of people realise that the dark alley rapist is a tiny proportion of rapists? Not 75,000 a year as in France or at least 47,000 a year in the UK, that's for sure.

yy to BHL- pretentious twat. And also 57% of French think it was a set up? 57%?

I'm constantly amazed at the audacity of some men to vouch for the behaviour of their male friends around women. How the bloody blazes does he know what it's like to be a woman stuck in a room with S-K? Yet apparently the idea that he would be violent is "absurd".

Every time I see or hear BHL I want to shout who gives a fuck what you think

The man is a blight.

The news has shocked France. In a CSA poll, 57% of voters and 70% of Socialists said they thought Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a plot. The philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy said Strauss-Kahn had been his friend for 20 years and would remain so: "Charming, seductive, yes, certainly; a friend to women and, first of all, to his own woman, naturally; but this brutal and violent individual, this wild animal, this primate? Obviously no, it's absurd."

From the Guardian. Surprise, surprise re BHL- IIRC he was fiercely defending Polanski as well

Sorry to hear you had to sit through that, Beachcomber.

I read on the Guardian site today that only 10% of the 75,000 French rape victims each year go to the police.

Sorry, meant FIL is regurgitating rape myths - although TBH they both were.

I have just spent the evening with my French parents in law. MIL is a staunch socialist and PIL is regurgitating rape myths.

We agreed to stop shouting at each other change the subject.

I have just fired off a note to BBC News via their website, which included this para:

"I am angry that so much comment has been made about him being a "womaniser", a "ladies man" and having "affairs". Do your editors intend to give the impression that this case is a sex encounter gone wrong, rather than a crime of violence?"

I think I am just going to stick to listening to 6Music. I used to like knowing what was going on in the world. Not so much anymore.