What the Strauss-Kahn Scandal Teaches the French
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The image of a handcuffed Dominique Strauss-Kahn being led to a New York jail has hovered over France for days. Among the questions the episode has raised is a particularly uncomfortable one for the French: Did their laissez-faire attitude toward officials' private lives help produce the spectacle of a respected leader charged with sexually assaulting a hotel maid?
"In truth, I am not astonished by this affair," says Jean-Paul Garraud, a parliamentary deputy who is a center-right spokesman on judicial matters. "In France, there's a real tolerance about our politicians. Maybe it's because of our monarchist past."